Analysis of factors that play a role on the healing process in exudates from skin wounds might shed light on the effect that grafted artificial tissue has in wound regeneration and repair. The first objective of this work was to standardize an optic surface plasmon resonance method based on self-assembled monolayers to quantify healing mediator factors (angiopoietin-2, epidermal growth factor, tumour necrosis factor-α, transforming growth factor-β1, and vascular endothelial growth factor) in wound exudates. Optimal conditions for self-assembling of alkanethiol monolayers, immobilization of antibodies antifactors, and regeneration of sensor surfaces were established. A second objective was to compare healing of wounds grafted with artificial dermis with wounds left to heal by secondary intention (control) in a lagomorph model of full-thickness skin wound. Each animal included in this study had a control wound and an identical contralateral wound grafted with artificial dermis that was made by seeding autologous skin fibroblasts into unidirectional or multidirectional collagen type I scaffolds. Histological and histomorphometric analyses were carried out when animals were sacrificed, in addition to quantifying the factors in the exudates of wounds sampled 3 days after surgery. There were significant differences between the concentrations of evaluated factors in the exudates from grafted and control wounds. This finding coincides with differences observed in the histological and histomorphometric analyses of repaired tissue formed in treated and control wounds.
Keywords: collagen scaffolds; healing biomarkers; nanobiosensor methodology; self-assembled monolayers; unidirectional and multidirectional artificial dermis; wound exudates.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.