Correction: Microenvironment-responsive multifunctional hydrogels with spatiotemporal sequential release of tailored recombinant human collagen type III for the rapid repair of infected chronic diabetic wounds

Correction for ‘Microenvironment-responsive multifunctional hydrogels with spatiotemporal sequential release of tailored recombinant human collagen type III for the rapid repair of infected chronic diabetic wounds’ by Cheng Hu et al., J. Mater. Chem. B, 2021, 9, 9684–9699, DOI: 10.1039/D1TB02170B.

Dissolving microneedle-encapsulated drug-loaded nanoparticles and recombinant humanized collagen type III for the treatment of chronic wound via anti-inflammation and enhanced cell proliferation and angiogenesis

The first recombinant humanized collagen type III (rhCol III) and naproxen (Nap) loaded poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles incorporated hyaluronic acid (HA) microneedle (MN) was fabricated for diabetic chronic wounds therapy.

TGF-β3 regulates adhesion formation through the JNK/c-Jun pathway during flexor tendon healing

Background The injured flexor tendon has poor healing ability, which is easy to cause tendon adhesion. It can affect the recovery of tendon function, which is still a long-term and difficult task for surgeons. Transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) has been widely considered to play an important role in flexor tendon repair in recent years. Aim This work was to investigate the anti-adhesion and anti-inflammatory effects of TGF-β3 on flexor digitorum longus (FDL) tendon repair rats. Method Anastomosis models of tendon laceration in the flexion toes of rats were delivered with no treatment, vehicle, or TGF-β3 -overexpressed adenovirus vector (ad-TGF-β3) locally to the injured tendon area from day 3 to 8. Subsequently, the expression of TGF-β3, TGF-β1/2, Smad3, Smad7, JNK, phosphorylation (p)-JNK, c-Jun, and phosphorylation (p)-c-Jun were detected by western blot, the expression of Mmp9 and Mmp2 by RT-qPCR, the Range of motion (ROM) and gliding resistance by adhesion formation testing, the mechanical strength of tendon healing by biomechanical testing, the pathologic changes of flexor tendon tissues by HE staining, the expression of collagen type III by immunohistochemical staining, and the levels of IL-6, TNF-α, COX2 and IL-1β in serum by ELISA, respectively. Results Rat models treated with no treatment showed a lower elevation of TGF-β3 and Smad7 expression, and a higher elevation of TGF-β1/2 and Smad3 expression, during day 14 to day 28. Besides, under the treatment of ad-TGF-β3, a significantly increase was reflected in the expression of TGF-β3 and Smad7, ROM, as well as mechanical strength of flexor tendon, whereas significantly reduction was shown in gliding resistance, the content of inflammatory cytokines, the ratio of p-JNK/JNK, p-c-Jun/c-Jun, as well as the expression of TGF-β1/2, Smad3, Mmp9, and Mmp2 genes, as compared to those from vehicle treatment. Meanwhile, TGF-β3 demonstrated a better pathologic recovery process with no obvious necrosis or fracture of collagen fibers. Besides, TGF-β3 revealed a significant reduction of collagen type-III expression in the flexor tendon healing tissues. Conclusion These findings suggested that TGF-β3 effectively protected against flexor tendon injury via regulating adhesion formation.

High-Resolution Bioprinting of Recombinant Human Collagen Type III

The development of commercial collagen inks for extrusion-based bioprinting has increased the amount of research on pure collagen bioprinting, i.e., collagen inks not mixed with gelatin, alginate, or other more common biomaterial inks. New printing techniques have also improved the resolution achievable with pure collagen bioprinting. However, the resultant collagen constructs still appear too weak to replicate dense collagenous tissues, such as the cornea. This work aims to demonstrate the first reported case of bioprinted recombinant collagen films with suitable optical and mechanical properties for corneal tissue engineering. The printing technology used, aerosol jet® printing (AJP), is a high-resolution printing method normally used to deposit conductive inks for electronic printing. In this work, AJP was employed to deposit recombinant human collagen type III (RHCIII) in overlapping continuous lines of 60 µm to form thin layers. Layers were repeated up to 764 times to result in a construct that was considered a few hundred microns thick when swollen. Samples were subsequently neutralised and crosslinked using EDC:NHS crosslinking. Nanoindentation and absorbance measurements were conducted, and the results show that the AJP-deposited RHCIII samples possess suitable mechanical and optical properties for corneal tissue engineering: an average effective elastic modulus of 506 ± 173 kPa and transparency ≥87% at all visible wavelengths. Circular dichroism showed that there was some loss of helicity of the collagen due to aerosolisation. SDS-PAGE and pepsin digestion were used to show that while some collagen is degraded due to aerosolisation, it remains an inaccessible substrate for pepsin cleavage.

Differential expression of collagen type III alpha 1 chain in human epithelial ovarian cancer.

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the most lethal gynecologic cancer (1). We performed discovery of genes associated with epithelial ovarian cancer and of the high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC) subtype, using published microarray data (2, 3) to compare global gene expression profiles of normal ovary or fallopian tube with that of primary tumors from women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer or HGSC. We identified the gene encoding collagen type III alpha 1 chain, COL3A1, as among the genes whose expression was most different in epithelial ovarian cancer as compared to the normal fallopian tube. COL3A1 expression was significantly higher in high-grade serous ovarian tumors relative to normal fallopian tube. COL3A1 expression correlated with overall survival in patients with ovarian cancer. These data indicate that expression of COL3A1 is perturbed in epithelial ovarian cancers broadly and in ovarian cancers of the HGSC subtype. COL3A1 may be relevant to pathways underlying ovarian cancer initiation (transformation) or progression.

Collagen type III and VI remodeling biomarkers are associated with kidney fibrosis in lupus nephritis

Background: Lupus nephritis (LN) occurs in up to 40% of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Reliable biomarkers of kidney damage are needed to identify SLE patients at risk to develop LN in order to improve screening, treat earlier, and halt progression to kidney failure. Novel biomarkers of extracellular matrix remodeling were evaluated as markers of kidney fibrosis and disease activity in LN patients. Methods: Biomarkers of the interstitial collagen type III (PRO-C3) and type VI (PRO-C6) formation as well as of collagen type III (C3M) degradation were evaluated in the serum and urine of 40 patients with LN, 20 SLE patients without LN, 20 healthy controls and 10 biopsy controls (histological kidney inflammation/damage without SLE). Their association with histological markers of interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy, with inflammatory cell infiltration and with disease activity and chronicity in the LN patients was assessed. Results: Despite PRO-C3 (serum) and PRO-C6 (serum and urine) were significantly elevated in LN patients compared to healthy controls, they were not able to separate the LN from the SLE patients. C3M (urine) levels were not different in the LN group compared to the others. C3M (urine) strongly correlated and PRO-C6 (serum and urine) inversely correlated with kidney function (eGFR). The biomarkers of interstitial collagen turnover PRO-C6 (serum) and C3M (urine) correlated with histological markers of interstitial fibrosis, tubular atrophy, and monocyte infiltration. Conclusions: Non-invasive collagen turnover biomarkers are promising tools to identify SLE patients with kidney histological modifications.