Fabrication and Characterization of an Electro-Compacted Collagen/Elastin/Hyaluronic Acid Sheet as a Potential Skin Scaffold

The development of biomimetic structures with integrated extracellular matrix (ECM) components represents a promising approach to biomaterial fabrication. Here, an artificial ECM, comprising the structural protein collagen I and elastin (ELN), as well as the glycosaminoglycan hyaluronan (HA), is reported. Specifically, collagen and ELN are electrochemically aligned to mimic the compositional characteristics of the dermal matrix. HA is incorporated into the electro-compacted collagen-ELN matrices via adsorption and chemical immobilization, to give a final composition of collagen/ELN/HA of 7:2:1. This produces a final collagen/ELN/hyaluronic acid scaffold (CEH) that recapitulates the compositional feature of the native skin ECM. This study analyzes the effect of CEH composition on the cultivation of human dermal fibroblast cells (HDFs) and immortalized human keratinocytes (HaCaTs). It is shown that the CEH scaffold supports dermal regeneration by promoting HDFs proliferation, ECM deposition, and differentiation into myofibroblasts. The CEH scaffolds are also shown to support epidermis growth by supporting HaCaTs proliferation, differentiation, and stratification. A double-layered epidermal-dermal structure is constructed on the CEH scaffold, further demonstrating its ability in supporting skin cell function and skin regeneration.