Nonviral Expression of LL-37 in a Human Skin Equivalent to Prevent Infection in Skin Wounds.

Inefficient autologous tissue recovery in skin wounds increases the susceptibility of patients to infections caused by multidrug resistant microorganisms, resulting in a high mortality rate. Genetic modification of skin cells has become an important field of study because it could lead to the construction of more functional skin grafts, through the overexpression of antimicrobial peptides that would prevent early contamination and infection with bacteria. In this study, we produce and evaluate human skin equivalents (HSEs) containing transfected human primary fibroblasts and keratinocytes by polyplexes to express the antimicrobial peptide LL-37.

Probing poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-butylacrylate)/cell interactions by atomic force microscopy.

Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) based hydrogels have been proposed as cell culture supports in cell sheet engineering. Toward this goal, we characterized the poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-butylacrylate) copolymer thermo-sensitivity and the cell/copolymer interactions above and below the copolymer lower critical solution temperature. We did that by direct force measurements at different temperatures using an atomic force microscope with either a polystyrene or a glass microbead as probes.