Development of a short-term canine full-thickness skin organ culture method under serum-free conditions

Full-thickness canine skin organ culture models could provide an entirely new opportunity for studying wound healing, keratinization disorders and allergic skin diseases, all of which have high prevalence and severe impact on canine quality of life. Here we present a canine organ culture method for the short-term maintenance of full-thickness, adult, canine skin in serum-free medium and investigate the possibility to induce mast cell degranulation ex vivo. General morphological features were maintained up to day 7. Epidermal thickness started to decrease from day 4 of culture. No changes were observed in epidermal pigmentation. Keratinocyte proliferation started to significantly decrease at day 7. Immunostaining for cytokeratin 10, cytokeratin 14 and loricrin was evident from day 1 to day 7. Compound 48/80 induced mast cell degranulation. This was the first attempt to establish a dog skin organ culture and document good preservation of most cutaneous structures till day 7. This method may help in dissecting canine skin biology in physiological and pathological conditions and to study drug mechanism of action in a biologically relevant environment.