Histological characterization of epidermal sheet.

<p>(A) Gross appearance of the split-thickness skin. (B) Gross appearance of the epidermal sheet. It appears milk white, soft and elastic, and can be lifted and stretched by forceps. (C) H&E staining of the split-thickness skin. It is composed of an epidermis (solid arrows) and an underlying partial dermis, including some sebaceous glands (dotted arrow) and hair follicles (asterisks). Scale bar = 200 µm. (D) H&E staining of the epidermal sheet. It contains only an intact epidermis. Scale bar = 100 µm. (E–H) Immunohistochemical staining reveals that the split-thickness skin contains continuous distributions of collagen IV (arrows in E) and laminin (arrows in G) at the epidermal-dermal junction, and neither of them is detected in the epidermal sheet (F and H). Dotted lines indicate the location of basal keratinocytes. Scale bars = 100 µm.