Abstract Skin has a highly regulated pH environment of around pH 7.2 but with an acid barrier mantle of around pH 5.5. Trauma, inflammation, and infection are all thought to disrupt this pH environment but the lack of a non-invasive technique to measure pH within discrete locations within skin has hindered investigating what role pH plays in wound healing. In this study, a confocal Raman microspectroscopy method was used for measuring pH in a 3D tissue engineered model of human skin (TE-skin) and evaluated for its ability to detect changes in pH in response to wounding, inflammation and bacterial infection. The state of protonation of phosphate groups within the TE-skin was used to indicate pH in a non-destructive manner exploring depths of skin from the stratum corneum to 600 microns into the dermis. Deliberate wounding or inflammation (induced by IL-17) resulted in a loss of the acid mantle. Detailed scanning of TE-skin infected with Staphylococcus aureus or Pseudomonas aeruginosa revealed heterogeneous pH microenvironments ranging in size from 10 × 10 to 50 × 100 microns and ranging from pH 5 to 9. These microenvironments were not detected if an average pH for the TE-skin model was used.

中文翻译：

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使用拉曼共聚焦光谱法非侵入性检测组织工程人体皮肤中细菌诱导的 pH 值变化

摘要 皮肤具有高度调节的 pH 值环境，pH 值约为 7.2，但酸性屏障外膜的 pH 值约为 5.5。外伤、炎症和感染都被认为会破坏这种 pH 环境，但缺乏测量皮肤内离散位置 pH 值的非侵入性技术阻碍了研究 pH 值在伤口愈合中的作用。在这项研究中，共聚焦拉曼显微光谱方法用于测量 3D 人体皮肤组织工程模型 (TE-skin) 中的 pH 值，并评估其检测因伤口、炎症和细菌感染而引起的 pH 值变化的能力。TE 皮肤内磷酸盐基团的质子化状态用于以非破坏性方式指示 pH 值，探索从角质层到真皮 600 微米的皮肤深度。故意伤害或炎症（由 IL-17 诱导）导致酸性外壳的丧失。对感染金黄色葡萄球菌或铜绿假单胞菌的 TE 皮肤进行详细扫描，发现大小不等的 pH 微环境从 10 × 10 到 50 × 100 微米不等，范围从 pH 5 到 9。如果 TE-使用皮肤模型。