3D printing of collagen skin dressings from marine sponges and fish skin: a comparative study for application in skin wounds treatment

Abstract

Skin wounds are a public health problem that could evolve into chronic conditions, resulting in high costs for health systems, and also responsible for reducing the life quality of affected individuals. In this context, it is extremely necessary to carry out research to develop increasingly innovative therapeutic measures that combine effectiveness and low cost for the treatment of wound healing. Within this perspective, tissue engineering has assumed a prominent role in the development of new biomaterials and therapeutic resources in order to accelerate the process of skin tissue repair. Thus, the objectives of this study are: (i): to produce skin dressings from marine sponge collagen and fish skin, using the 3D printing technique; (ii) evaluate the in vitro biological performance of skin dressings, through cytotoxicity and genotoxicity assays; (iii) to evaluate the in vivo biological performance of skin dressings, through studies with an animal model at determined periods, with calculation of the area of wound contraction; (iv) evaluate the morphological and morphometric changes from the application of the marine collagen skin dressing, through histological and immunohistochemical analysis. It should be noted that our group already has expertise in extracting collagen from sponges and fish skin, as well as in the manufacture of skin dressings. Thus, this project will be developed in the next steps: obtaining marine collagen from sponge and marine collagen from fish skin, and manufacturing the dressings. Then in vitro tests will be performed (with fibroblasts) through the following groups: Control (GI); sponge marine collagen skin dressing (GII); fish skin marine collagen skin dressing (GIII) and commercial collagen wound dressing (GIV). Cells will be evaluated for their proliferation and viability in three periods (24, 72 and 120 hours). For in vivo tests, 64 animals will be used, divided into the following groups: Control Group; Sponge marine collagen skin dressing group and Fish skin marine collagen skin dressing. All animals will be submitted to a skin wound (diameter of 15 mm) and then will be subdivided into 3 subgroups with different experimental periods (7 and 14 days). The effectiveness of in vivo treatments will be evaluated as the percentage of tissue healing, morphological and morphometric evaluations. For statistical analysis, ANOVA-Two-way analysis of variance will be performed. In the presence of significant difference (p<0.05) the post-hoc Tukey test will be applied. It is expected that this study will contribute to the development of new technologies, obtained from marine resources, to improve skin repair treatments, using national and natural biomaterials associated with 3D printing technology.