Development of 3D skin dressings manufactured with marine collagen and enriched with exosomes from mesenchymal stem cells for treating skin wounds in diabetic rats

• Grant number: 24/16046-4
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: February 01, 2026
• End date: January 31, 2029
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Ana Claudia Muniz Renno
• Grantee: Ana Claudia Muniz Renno
• Host Institution: Instituto de Saúde e Sociedade (ISS). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Baixada Santista. Santos , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Cintia Cristina Santi Martignago ; Marcelo de Assis ; Renata Neves Granito ; Renko de Vries

Abstract

There is currently a significant increase in the incidence of diabetes mellitus (DM) in the world population, resulting in a high rate of morbidity and mortality in affected individuals. Systemic complications resulting from DM are responsible for the development of retinopathies, cardiovascular diseases, neuropathies and difficulty in healing after tissue injuries, with the appearance of chronic wounds and diabetic ulcers. Therefore, the development of more innovative and effective therapeutic interventions for the treatment of these complications becomes increasingly important. Recently, fish skin collagen has been used as a raw material for making skin dressings to accelerate the wound tissue repair process. However, in cases of major tissue loss, there is a need to optimize these treatments and one of the innovative strategies that has emerged is the addition of exosomes from mesenchymal cells to skin dressings. Thus, the present proposal has the general objective of evaluating the in vitro biocompatibility as well as the in vivo biological performance in diabetic animals of a fish skin collagen dressing manufactured using the 3D printing technique and added with exosomes. To achieve these objectives, exosome characterization tests will be used, in addition to skin tissue cells for in vitro studies (where cell proliferation and viability will be evaluated). For in vivo tests, Wistar rats will be used, which will be subjected to experimental models to induce DM and skin damage and then subjected to treatments with the aforementioned therapeutic components for subsequent analysis. Thus, from these pre-clinical studies, it is expected that this proposal will enable the development of new, more effective and safe treatments, prospected from biodiversity and which aim to accelerate the process of tissue repair and treatment of chronic wounds. Furthermore, in the long term, the results obtained from this study could result in economic and social benefits, since the creation of innovative therapies to treat the symptoms of these tissues will contribute to reducing rates of absenteeism from work, the number of appointments medical conditions and the use of medicines and surgeries. The economic benefits will also be associated with offering treatments at a reduced cost. (AU)