Design of a 3D-bioprinted mesenchymal stem-cell laden construct for accelerating angiogenesis in diabetic wounds

Diabetic wounds are a major complication of diabetes that can be debilitating to patients, with approximately 29.1 million people living with diabetes in the United States. A major contributor to delayed and/or inadequate healing of diabetic wounds is aberrant angiogenesis and vascularization. This study focused on the development and validation of an adult mesenchymal stem cell-laden, hybridized chitosan (CS) and polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffold for accelerating angiogenesis in a diabetic wound. We preliminarily used an established murine cornea wound model in hyperglycemic, heterozygous Ins2(Akita) mice to test wound in a diabetic mammal. We applied silver nitrate to induce a chemical burn on the surface of the cornea (Figure 1A). Then, we conducted non-invasive, intravital imaging of vascularization into the wound bed over time. We observed neovessels in this diabetic wound model were decreased in number, consistent with the presence of abundant subconjuctival hemorrhages in diabetic corneas as seen in ...