Dual gene-activated dermal scaffolds regulate angiogenesis and wound healing by mediating the coexpression of VEGF and angiopoietin-1

Tingting Weng; Min Yang; Wei Zhang; Ronghua Jin; Sizhan Xia; Manjia Zhang; Pan Wu; Xiaojie He; Chunmao Han; Xiong Zhao; Xingang Wang

doi:10.1002/btm2.10562

Dual gene-activated dermal scaffolds regulate angiogenesis and wound healing by mediating the coexpression of VEGF and angiopoietin-1

Bioeng Transl Med. 2023 Jun 25;8(5):e10562. doi: 10.1002/btm2.10562. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Authors

Tingting Weng^{1

2

3}, Min Yang^{1

2}, Wei Zhang^{1

2}, Ronghua Jin^{1

2}, Sizhan Xia^{1

2}, Manjia Zhang⁴, Pan Wu^{1

2}, Xiaojie He^{1

2}, Chunmao Han^{1

2}, Xiong Zhao³, Xingang Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Burns & Wound Care Centre Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine Hangzhou China.
² The Key Laboratory of Severe Trauma and Burns of Zhejiang Province Hangzhou China.
³ Department of Burn and Plastic Surgery Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, National Clinical Research Center for Child Health, National Children's Regional Medical Center Hangzhou China.
⁴ The First Clinical Medical College, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University Hangzhou China.

Abstract

The vascularization of dermal substitutes is a key challenge in efforts to heal deep skin defects. In this study, dual gene-activated dermal scaffolds (DGADSs-1) were fabricated by loading nanocomposite particles of polyethylenimine (PEI)/multiple plasmid DNAs (pDNAs) encoding vascular endothelial growth factor and angiopoietin-1 at a ratio of 1:1. In a similar manner, DGADSs-2 were loaded with a chimeric plasmid encoding both VEGF and Ang-1. In vitro studies showed that both types of DGADSs released PEI/pDNA nanoparticles in a sustained manner; they demonstrated effective transfection ability, leading to upregulated expression of VEGF and Ang-1. Furthermore, both types of DGADSs promoted fibroblast proliferation and blood vessel formation, although DGADSs-1 showed a more obvious promotion effect. A rat full-thickness skin defect model showed that split-thickness skin transplanted using a one-step method could achieve full survival at the 12th day after surgery in both DGADSs-1 and DGADSs-2 groups, and the vascularization time of dermal substitutes was significantly shortened. Compared with the other three groups of scaffolds, the DGADSs-1 group had significantly greater cell infiltration, collagen deposition, neovascularization, and vascular maturation, all of which promoted wound healing. Thus, compared with single-gene-activated dermal scaffolds, DGADSs show greater potential for enhancing angiogenesis. DGADSs with different loading modes also exhibited differences in terms of angiogenesis; the effect of loading two genes (DGADSs-1) was better than the effect of loading a chimeric gene (DGADSs-2). In summary, DGADSs, which continuously upregulate VEGF and Ang-1 expression, offer a new functional tissue-engineered dermal substitute with the ability to activate vascularization.

Keywords: VEGF; angiogenesis; angiopoietin‐1; dual gene‐activated scaffolds; wound healing.