Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
Pretreatment in tissue culture (TC) was previously found to markedly reduce the in vitro cytotoxicity of two types of crosslinked dermal sheep collagens (DSC's). This in vivo study confirms our in vitro results, in that TC-pretreatment of crosslinked DSC's resulted in the marked reduction or elimination of cytotoxic effects, such as increased cell infiltration, a deviant neutrophil-morphology, lipid formation and cell death. TC-pretreatment affected the crosslinked state of both DSC's in a different way, which could be deduced from the differences in gelatin-formation and presence of giant cells from macrophage- or fibroblast-origin. The results are explained in view of the differences in crosslinking.