EPIDERMAL-DERMAL INTERACTIONS IN ADULT HUMAN SKIN: ROLE OF DERMIS IN EPIDERMAL MAINTENANCE*

Journal/Book: THE JOURNAL OF INVESTIGATIVE DERMATOLOGY Vol. 51 No. 6. 1968;

Abstract: * From the Division of Dermatology Department of Medicine University of North Carolina School of Medicine Chapel Hill North Carolina 27514. Â† Recipient of Special Fellowship 1-F3-AM-35 608-1. SUMMARY The influence of dermis an the maintenance of adult human epidermis was examined by studying the behavior of isolated and recombined epidermis and dermis grafted to the chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM). The preservation of a mitotically active basal cell layer orderly stratified maturation of cells with malpighian and granular cell layers and formation of new stratum corneum were used as criteria for the epidermal maintenance during cultivation. Maximal preservation of these characteristics was observed in whole skin grafted to the CAM. Isolated epidermis degenerated rapidly after grafting. However when epidermis was recombined with dermis prior to grafting the epidermis was well maintained showing all the characteristics listed above. Therefore epidermal maintenance in this system was dependent an the presence of dermis. Both viable and freeze-thawed dermis as well as homologous and heterologous dermis maintained epidermis in recombinants. Other Substrate materials (Millipore filter agar gel and heat killed dermis) were not effective in maintaining epidermis. When epidermis and dermis were recombined on opposite sides of a Millipore filter and grafted to the CAM epidermis degenerated indicating a failure of the dermis to influence epidermis when separated by a distance of 25 microns. No evidence for a diffusible dermal factor responsible for the observed dermal effect was found in these studies. schö

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