Figure 5.

Quantification of blistering in engineered skin substitutes (ESS) in vivo. ESS were prepared with RDEB fibroblasts (EBF) or normal fibroblasts (NF) and RDEB keratinocytes (EBK) or normal keratinocytes (NK) and blistering was evaluated at weeks 1, 2, and 3 after grafting to mice. Blistering values are based on the total length of blisters as a percent of total length of the dermal–epidermal junction in non-overlapping microscopic fields. Values plotted are means + standard error of the mean (SEM). No blistering was observed for grafts prepared with all normal cells (NF–NK); thus, these values are zero for each time point. Group differences at each time point were statistically significant and P-values are indicated. Significant pairwise differences are indicated by symbols (*, P < 0.05 vs. NF–NK; #, P < 0.05 vs. all other groups at the same time point).