Towards the Development of Sensation-Enabled Skin Substitutes

Abstract

Recent advances in reconstructing the 3D structure of human organs, through 3D biofabrication technologies, have introduced new methods for developing complex organs. Thus, much progress has been made to develop skin substitutes using tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM) technologies. However, recent studies mainly focus on the restoration of the dermis and epidermis layers rather than the regeneration of a fully functional innervated skin organ. Innervation is a critical step in functional tissue repair which has been overlooked in the current TERM studies. In the current study, we highlight the importance of sensation in the skin as the largest sensory organ in the human body. In large non-healing skin wounds, the skin sensation is severely diminished or completely lost and ultimately lead to chronic pain and wound healing process interruption. Current therapeutics for restoring skin sensation after trauma are limited. The recent regenerative strategies, with the aid of cells and biomaterials, have shown the potential to promote the sensation ability into the damaged sites after trauma. Although some recent regenerative medicine-based studies are able to induce neural networks into the skin substitutes, the effectiveness of these technologies in terms of their sensation capability needs further investigation.