Design and Construction of Artificial Extracellular Matrix (aECM) Proteins from Escherichia coli for Skin Tissue Engineering.

Recombinant technology is a versatile platform to create novel artificial proteins with tunable properties. For the last decade, many artificial proteins that have incorporated functional domains derived from nature (or created de novo) have been reported. In particular, artificial extracellular matrix (aECM) proteins have been developed; these aECM proteins consist of biological domains taken from fibronectin, laminins and collagens and are combined with structural domains including elastin-like repeats, silk and collagen repeats. To date, aECM proteins have been widely investigated for applications in tissue engineering and wound repair. Recently, Tjin and coworkers developed integrin-specific aECM proteins designed for promoting human skin keratinocyte attachment and propagation. In their work, the aECM proteins incorporate cell binding domains taken from fibronectin, laminin-5 and collagen IV, as well as flanking elastin-like repeats. They demonstrated that the aECM proteins developed in their work were promising candidates for use as substrates in artificial skin. Here, we outline the design and construction of such aECM proteins as well as their purification process using the thermo-responsive characteristics of elastin.