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Bioprinting Gelatin-Recombinant Type III Collagen Hydrogel for Wound Healing

Figure 8. Sirius red staining images of the skin tissues of the rat wounds in four different groups on day 13. Scale bar: 200 μm.

high-quality wound healing was achieved in the GRH Acknowledgments
20
group compared to other groups.
We acknowledge funding supports by Jiangsu
4. Conclusion Key Research and Development Plan (Society
Development, No. BE2018639), the Qinglan
Artificial skins as the wound covering materials Project of Jiangsu Province, Shenzhen Science and
that promote the regeneration of damaged skins can Technology Projects (GJHZ20190820115203714,
alleviate the pain of patients with severe skin damage. JSGG20191129094218565), Sanming Project of
Yet, an optimal composition of the covering materials Medicine in Shenzhen (SZSM201612079), Shenzhen
that lead to a high-quality, rapid wound healing has Fund for Guangdong Provincial High Level Clinical Key
still not been found. In this study, we showed that Specialties (No. SZGSP013, SZGSP007), and Shenzhen
gelatin alone is insufficient to provide an environment Key Medical Discipline Construction Fund (SZXK042
for damaged skin tissues to heal rapidly. The addition and SZXK049). This work was partially funded by the
of rColIII can significantly accelerate the speed of University Grants Committee of Hong Kong (GRF
wound healing and improve the quality of repair, as Grants N_CUHK422/18) and CUHK RSFS grant.
evidenced by a substantially smaller wound area,
denser tissue structures with an ordered arrangement Conflicts of interest
and obvious cuticle, a significantly higher amount of
collagen fibers instead of muscle fibers, and a higher No author has financial or other contractual disagreements
level of nascent collagens, especially the type III that might cause conflicts of interest.
collagen. Taken together, we present an all-protein Author contributions
hydrogel material composed of gelatin and rColIII
that can be used for wound healing in patients with J.H., H.L., and J. Xia designed the research. J.H., X.L.,
severe skin damage. Z.H., Z.R., and Y.X. performed the research. L.D., J.

22 International Journal of Bioprinting (2022)–Volume 8, Issue 2