Study of the Effectiveness of Skin Restoration Using a Biopolymer Hydrogel Scaffold with Encapsulated Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Improving the restoration of skin defects of various etiologies continues to be an important medical challenge globally. This primarily applies to the treatment of chronic wounds and major burns, which create particularly complex and socially significant problems for surgery. In recent decades the progress in these fields has largely been associated with techniques for regenerative medicine, specifically, techniques based on the use of tissue-engineered constructs. Before their use in clinical practice, all such newly developed constructs require preclinical studies to confirm their safety and effectiveness in animal models. This paper presents the results of preclinical studies of the effectiveness of restoration of full-layer degloving wounds in pigs using grafts of either an original biopolymer hydrogel scaffold or a skin equivalent based on it, but seeded with autologous skin cells (ASCs). It is demonstrated that the scaffold itself integrates into the wound bed tissues, facilitating cell recruitment and the accumulation and early maturation of granulation tissue. Then, at later stages of regeneration, the scaffold accelerates the maturation of connective tissue and promotes the formation of tissues similar to those of healthy skin in terms of thickness and structure. Owing to the ASCs present in it, the skin equivalent demonstrates greater effectiveness than the scaffold alone, in particular, due to overall faster remodeling of the graft connective tissue. Therefore, the scaffold we have developed and the skin equivalent based on it have much potential as products for the repair of skin wounds.