Translational Use of a Standardized Full Human Skin Organ Culture Model in Autoimmune Blistering Diseases.

The full human skin organ culture (HSOC) model is a standardized test system for evaluating pharmacological substances on human skin in vitro. The acantholysis associated with pemphigus vulgaris (PV), a severe and potentially life-threatening autoimmune skin blistering disease, can be induced in HSOC by injecting a bi-specific anti-desmoglein (dsg) 1 and 3 single-chain antibody variable fragment (scFv). Compared to cell culture experiments (e.