Programmable immune activating electrospun fibers for skin regeneration

• Main Authors: Lu Chen, Liucheng Zhang, Hongbo Zhang, Xiaoming Sun, Dan Liu, Jianming Zhang, Yuguang Zhang, Liying Cheng, Hélder A. Santos, Wenguo Cui
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. 2021-10-01
• Series: Bioactive Materials
• Subjects: Electrospun fiber; Drug release; Skin regeneration; Immune response; Macrophages
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452199X21000827

Immune cells play a crucial regulatory role in inflammatory phase and proliferative phase during skin healing. How to programmatically activate sequential immune responses is the key for scarless skin regeneration. In this study, an “Inner-Outer” IL-10-loaded electrospun fiber with cascade release behavior was constructed. During the inflammatory phase, the electrospun fiber released a lower concentration of IL-10 within the wound, inhibiting excessive recruitment of inflammatory cells and polarizing macrophages into anti-inflammatory phenotype “M2c” to suppress excessive inflammation response. During the proliferative phase, a higher concentration of IL-10 released by the fiber and the anti-fibrotic cytokines secreted by polarized “M2c” directly acted on dermal fibroblasts to simultaneously inhibit extracellular matrix overdeposition and promote fibroblast migration. The “Inner-Outer” IL-10-loaded electrospun fiber programmatically activated the sequential immune responses during wound healing and led to scarless skin regeneration, which is a promising immunomodulatory biomaterial with great potential for promoting complete tissue regeneration.