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Updated: Jul 14, 2026
Separation of Rat Epidermis and Dermis with Thermolysin to Detect Site-Specific Inflammatory mRNA and Protein
Published on: September 29, 2021
Thermolysin in human cultured keratinocyte isolation
A Gragnani1, C S Sobral, L M Ferreira
1Division of Plastic Surgery, Surgery Department, Federal University of São Paulo - UNIFESP/EPM, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. alfredogf@ig.com.br
Background:
When treating extensively burned patients using cultured epidermal sheets, the main problem is the time required for its production. Conventional keratinocyte isolation is usually done using Trypsin. We used a modification of the conventional isolation method in order to improve this process and increase the number of colonies from the isolated epidermal cell population.
Purpose:
To compare the action of trypsin and thermolysin in the keratinocyte isolation using newborn foreskin.
Methods:
This method used thermolysin as it selectively digests the dermo-epidermal junction. After dermis separation, the epidermis was digested by trypsin in order to obtain a cell suspension.
Results:
Compared to the conventional procedure, these experiments demonstrated that in the thermolysin group, the epidermis was easily detached from the dermis, there was no fibroblast contamination and there were a larger number of keratinocyte colonies which had a significant statistical difference.
Conclusion:
The number of colonies in the thermolysin group was significantly greater than in the trypsin group.
