Liquid Dermal Scaffold with Adipose-Derived Stem Cells Improve Tissue Quality in a Murine Model of Impaired Wound Healing

Wound repair and regeneration is a multidisciplinary field of research with considerable potential value to the management of deep and large burn injuries. These injuries lack an appropriate tissue scaffold and pro-healing cells making them difficult to heal. An alternative to the often limited autologous skin is a therapy that would restore the essential matrix and cellular components for rapid healing. In this study, they use a novel liquid dermal scaffold capable of gelation in vivo to show that it is biocompatible with adipose-derived stem cells. Using a validated method of wound splinting in a delayed-healing murine model, we show that wounds treated with the scaffold and stem cells had a significant reduction in wound size and had accelerated healing compared with control. The wounds treated with stem cells had increased capillary formation, collagen content, epidermal thickness, and essential growth factor expression in the healed tissue compared with control and liquid scaffold alone. This liquid dermal scaffold combined with cells is a feasible treatment strategy for complex or large burn wounds that are otherwise lacking the appropriate cellular matrix necessary for healing.