Engineering a human skin equivalent to study dermis remodelling and epidermis senescence in vitro after UVA exposure

Utra Violet type A (UVA) exposure strongly affects the ageing of human skin by modifying both epidermis and dermis and their cross talk as well. The possibility to get a deep understanding in vitro of such crucial mechanism would have a huge impact in the development of antiageing compounds. Here, we present a full thickness model of human skin equivalent formed by a millimeter-sized dermis completely composed of fibroblasts embedded in their own extracellular matrix. We show that such endogenous nature of the dermis compartment allows the replication of the complexity of the mutual interactions occurring between cellular and extracellular components of the skin under UVA exposure: (a) oxidative stress formation in the whole tissue (dermis and epidermis); (b) senescence of germinative layer of epidermal tissue in terms of p63, ki67, and activated caspase-3 regulation; (c) modification of the collagenous network architecture in the dermis compartment. By using this human skin model, it is possible to study a widely shared assumptions not yet proved in vitro such the effect of UVA on the self-renewal capability of skin stem cells.