Human Vascular Endothelial Cells Promote the Secretion of Vascularization Factors and Migration of Human Skin Fibroblasts under Co-Culture and Its Preliminary Application

Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Nov 13;23(22):13995. doi: 10.3390/ijms232213995.

Abstract

The good treatment of skin defects has always been a challenge in the medical field, and the emergence of tissue engineering skin provides a new idea for the treatment of injured skin. However, due to the single seed cells, the tissue engineering skin has the problem of slow vascularization at the premonitory site after implantation into the human body. Cell co-culture technology can better simulate the survival and communication environment of cells in the human body. The study of multicellular co-culture hopes to bring a solution to the problem of tissue engineering. In this paper, human skin fibroblasts (HSFs) and human vascular endothelial cells (HVECs) were co-cultured in Transwell. The Cell Counting Kit 8 (CCK8), Transwell migration chamber, immunofluorescence, Western blot (WB), and real time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) were used to study the effects of HVECs on cell activity, migration factor (high mobility group protein 1, HMGB1) and vascularization factor (vascular endothelial growth factor A, VEGFA and fibroblast growth factor 2, FGF2) secretion of HSFs after co-cultured with HVECs in the Transwell. The biological behavior of HSFs co-cultured with HVECs was studied. The experimental results are as follows: (1) The results of cck8 showed that HVECS could promote the activity of HSFs. (2) HVECs could significantly promote the migration of HSFs and promote the secretion of HMGB1. (3) HVECs could promote the secretion of VEGFA and FGF2 of HSFs. (4) The HVECs and HSFs were inoculated on tissue engineering scaffolds at the ratio of 1:4 and were co-cultured and detected for 7 days. The results showed that from the third day, the number of HSFs was significantly higher than that of the control group without HVECs.

Keywords: cell co-culture; cell migration; human skin fibroblasts; human vascular endothelial cells; tissue engineering scaffolds; vascularization factor.

MeSH terms

  • Coculture Techniques
  • Endothelial Cells*
  • Fibroblast Growth Factor 2 / metabolism
  • Fibroblasts / metabolism
  • HMGB1 Protein* / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A / genetics
  • Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A / metabolism

Substances

  • Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A
  • HMGB1 Protein
  • Fibroblast Growth Factor 2