Integrated Organ-on-a-chip with Human-induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Directional Differentiation for 3D Skin Model Generation

Keratinocytes and fibroblasts, derived from hiPSCs, were used to construct the human epidermal model by a culture patch made by monolayer poly-(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanofibers and a human skin-on-a-chip device. Unlike the conventional culture dish method, two different epidermal cells are successfully adhered to the front and back sides of the patch, which produces a three-dimensional nanofibrous scaffold similar to a natural extracellular matrix before the patch was cultured in the skin-on-a-chip device to mimic the physiological conditions of human skin. As expected, the differentiated hiPSCs show the expression of keratinocyte- and fibroblast- specific proteins on the patch, and the layering is found between these two kinds of cells, indicating that this approach creates a powerful in vitro system for modeling skin development and diseases.