Programmable immune activating electrospun fibers for skin regeneration

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.

Highlights

• Macrophages play a crucial regulatory role during sequential skin regeneration process.

• “Inner-Outer” IL-10-loaded electrospun fiber released the loaded cytokine in cascade.

• IL-10 of low concentration within the wound inhibited the excessive inflammatory response.

• Cytokines secreted by “M2c” inhibited the extracellular matrix overproduction.

• The “Inner-Outer” IL-10-loaded electrospun fiber programmatically activated the sequential immune responses.

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.

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Lu Chen, Liucheng Zhang, Hongbo Zhang, Xiaoming Sun, Dan Liu, Jianming Zhang, Yuguang Zhang, Liying Cheng, Hélder A. Santos, Wenguo Cui,
Programmable immune activating electrospun fibers for skin regeneration, Bioactive Materials, Volume 6, Issue 10, 2021, Pages 3218-3230,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bioactmat.2021.02.022.