A team of researchers from POSTECH has made a groundbreaking discovery in understanding the mechanisms behind the formation of wrinkles in biological tissues. By successfully recreating wrinkle structures in vitro, they have shed new light on the cellular processes that govern this ubiquitous phenomenon, with far-reaching implications for fields such as skin aging, regenerative therapies, and embryology.
The Enigma of Wrinkles
Everyone experiences wrinkles, which are usually related to age and bring cosmetic concerns. But as astonishing as that might be, the true impact of these complex structures is far more significant than those in terms of mere appearance. References to wrinkles are not limited to just the skin, as they can be found in many of organs and tissues such as brain, stomach, intestine, which is important for maintaining cellular states and differentiation ultimately contributing towards overall physiological function of these vital organs.
This is significant because the creation of these wrinkle patterns has proven thorny for researchers trying to reproduce them in vitro and no one was quite sure how they formed. While traditional animal models like fruit flies, mice and chicken have significantly contributed to understanding of the processes underlying wrinkle formation their relevance for human tissue is somewhat limited.
A Pioneering Project for Bio-Inspired Tissue Model
A team of researchers from POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) led by Professor Dong Sung Kim, Professor Anna Lee, and Dr. Jaeseung Youn has developed a simple but scalable technique to direct the self-organization of three types of human cells into a 3D tri-cellular communication model that autonomously communicates and exhibits synchronized oscillation in expression dynamics; their report is published in ‘eLife.’ For the first time, they found that by modulating the model with a precision compression device, it allows them to generate living wrinkle-like geometries in culture close to what we naturally observe in tissues such as gut and skin.
This advance has made it possible for the first time to reproduce hierarchical deformation of a single deep wrinkle under intense compression and simultaneoius creation of many small wrinkles under weak compression. Using their model system, they identified the key contributors to wrinkle formation such as the porousness of the underlying ECM, dehydration and also a compressive force on top of the epithelial layer.
The team reports the compressive forces that contort or deform the epithelial cell layer leads to mechanical instability in the ECM layer, which accumulates into wrinkles. They also observed that dehydration of the ECM layer is a crucial factor in this process, reproducing a phenomenon occurring during aging skin where it becomes dehydrated in depth which triggers wrinkle genesis.
Conclusion
According to the POSTECH research team, their work has laid a new foundation for unravelling the complicated process of wrinkle generation in living tissues. Their ability to mimic these structures in vitro has provided many valuable opportunities for the advancement of related research fields like skin aging, regenerative therapies and embryology. This information can help us to create better interventions and therefore have a greater understanding of the complexity of the human body.
