ELECTRO-PROCESSED SOY PROTEIN-BASED SCAFFOLDS FOR SKIN TISSUE ENGINEERING AND WOUND HEALING

Abstract

Wound healing is a complex, dynamic process that needs to be orchestrated in an orderly manner, involving different cell types, cytokines, and growth factors as well as extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions to avoid complications (e.g. scarring, chronic wounds, and impaired functionality). Current strategies for management of full thickness wounds are limited by material expense, limited availability of allograft tissue, autograft donor site morbidity, and even ethical problems associated with animal derived matrix components. To avoid cost, ethical, and even safety issues, there is renewed interest in using natural ingredients to construct advanced scaffolds for wound healing. At the cutting edge of the new field of regenerative medicine, demonstrated here is a scaffold based on soy protein. The second generation of soy based scaffold is constructed at the nanometer level to provide an ideal environment for cell interaction, growth, and development through a modified process termed ‘electro-processing’. The electro-processing developed here uses only water, low pressure air, and a very low current high voltage source improving not just the safety of the product, but also improving the manufacturing process. The proteins have also been indicated to release pro-healing cue to the surrounding tissue. Processing the natural soy protein to improve solubility has even enabled the new scaffolds to be generated without any harmful solvent and at rates many times faster than those previously demonstrated and at increased quality. The novel soy based electro-processed bioactive wound fabrics have been demonstrated successfully in vitro and in preliminary in vivo testing. These scaffolds have shown to be biocompatible, degradable and to improve healing quality compared to Tegaderm dressing in a rat full thickness excision model.