Sara Tabatabaee - Bio-Computing Department, Interdisciplinary Sciences and Technologies Faculty, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
Mahsa Delyanee - Biomedical Engineering Department, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
Reza Samanipour - Research and Development Supervisor, Iranian Tissue Product Company, Tehran, Iran
Amirhossein Tavakoli - Iranian Tissue Bank and Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

A wound refers to a disruption in the epithelial or mucous membrane of skin due to physical or thermal damage. Wound repairing is considered as a worldwide priority and a proper treatment of wound (minor/major injury) is of great importance. Wound healing is a dynamic complex process that requires a suitable environment to promote the process. Traditional wound dressing products including gauze, wound dressing cloth, plaster, bandage (natural or artificial), and raw dry cotton are utilized as primary or secondary dressings to protect clean and dry wounds with mild exudates. Currently, skin tissue engineering has been proposed as an outstanding method for the repair/regeneration of the damaged tissue and overcoming the limitations of traditional wound dressings. This novel approach has provided remarkable outcomes in the mentioned field.In this project, regarding the urgent need for introducing an advanced wound dressing capable of curing various types of wounds, a scaffold composed of a glutaraldehyde (GA)-crosslinked matrix of collagen and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) originated from human acellular skin has been fabricated and further subjected to structural and biological studies. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) has been used for evaluating the microstructure of the scaffold, Also, in order to examine its biocompatibility, human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs) were cultured on the wound dressing's surface and their viability after ۴۸ and ۷۲ hours was investigated through ۳ - (۴,۵ - dimethylthiazol - ۲ - yl) - ۲,۵ - diphenyl - ۲H -t etrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. According to the obtained results, the porous structure of the graft was preserved after cross-linking procedure, and due to the interconnectivity of the pores, the prepared wound dressing may provide a favorable microenvironment for the initiation of cellular activities (such as migration, growth, proliferation, and differentiation) and eventually, regeneration of the damaged area. The output of the MTT assay also indicated the survival of more than ۸۰% of the cells and demonstrated the lack of toxicity within the structure. Therefore, it can be claimed that this scaffold is a promising candidate to play the role of an efficient dressing for treatment of acute/chronic wounds.

Wound, Wound Dressing, Skin Tissue Engineering, Allograft, Col-GAG