• Luís Ricardo Martinhão Souto, José Vassallo, Jussara Rehder, Glauce Aparecida Pinto, and Maria Beatriz Puzzi.
• School of Medical Sciences, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil.
• Sao Paulo Med J. 2009 Jan 1; 127 (1): 283328-33.

Context And ObjectiveOver the last few years, different models for human skin equivalent reconstructed in vitro (HSERIV) have been reported for clinical usage and applications in research for the pharmaceutical industry. Before release for routine use as human skin replacements, HSERIV models need to be tested regarding their similarity with in vivo skin, using morphological (architectural) and immunohistochemical (functional) analyses. A model for HSERIV has been developed in our hospital, and our aim here was to further characterize its immunoarchitectural features by comparing them with human skin, before it can be tested for clinical use, e.g. for severe burns or wounds, whenever ancillary methods are not indicated.Design And SettingExperimental laboratory study, in the Skin Cell Culture Laboratory, School of Medical Sciences, Universidade Estadual de Campinas.MethodsHistological sections were stained with hematoxylin-eosin, Masson's trichrome for collagen fibers, periodic acid-Schiff reagent for basement membrane and glycogen, Weigert-Van Gieson for elastic fibers and Fontana-Masson for melanocytes. Immunohistochemistry was used to localize cytokeratins (broad spectrum of molecular weight, AE1/AE3), high molecular weight cytokeratins (34betaE12), low molecular weight cytokeratins (35betaH11), cytokeratins 7 and 20, vimentin, S-100 protein (for melanocytic and dendritic cells), CD68 (KP1, histiocytes) and CD34 (QBend, endothelium).ResultsHistology revealed satisfactory similarity between HSERIV and in vivo skin. Immunohistochemical analysis on HSERIV demonstrated that the marker pattern was similar to what is generally present in human skin in vivo.ConclusionHSERIV is morphologically and functionally compatible with human skin observed in vivo.

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