Allogeneic-syngeneic cultured epithelia. A successful therapeutic option for skin regeneration.
Organ transplantation has progressed rapidly during the last decades. Furthermore, tissue engineering has and will continue to enlarge the scope of organ grafting. Thus, severe skin wounds, as observed in large burn trauma patients, can now be permanently treated with cultured autologous epithelial sheets. However, the time required for autologous cell growth is a major limitation. We propose to alleviate this pitfall through a novel chimeric (allogeneic-syngeneic) epithelial cell culture technique. These chimeric epidermal grafts implanted in an animal model have been shown to allow the reappearance of a histologically normal epidermal coverage similar to simultaneously performed isografts. The regenerated epidermis contained only syngeneic keratinocytes. Thus, allogeneic cells were eliminated passively. This new culture technology could find multiple applications, notably in various skin disease therapies.