The effects of amniotic membranes (AMs), either fresh human and bovine AMs or acellular bovine AMs, on wound healing were compared among the burn wounds of porcine skin. Six pigs were chosen for the study, and we created deep second-degree contact burns on them with a digitally controlled aluminum thermal block. Then we applied the dressings to some of the wounds using fresh human and bovine AMs, acellular bovine AMs, polyurethane foam, or no dressing. We evaluated the pigs for (1) the rate of epithelialization, (2) histological grading, and (3) infections. We found that the AM groups showed better wound-healing effects than did the polyurethane foam and no dressing groups, and these differences were statistically significant. However, the differences between the AM groups were not statistically significant. Wound cultures showed higher infection rates in the control and polyurethane foam groups compared with the other groups. Our study showed that fresh or acellular bovine AMs provided similar efficacy for wound healing as did the fresh human AMs.

Most types of collagen used for biomedical applications, such as cell therapy and tissue engineering, are derived from animal tissues. Therefore, special precautions must be taken during the production of these proteins in order to assure against the possibility of the products transmitting infectious diseases to the recipients. The ability to remove and/or inactivate known and potential viral contaminants during the manufacturing process is an ever-increasingly important parameter in assessing the safety of biomedical products. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacies of the 70% ethanol treatment and pepsin treatment at pH 2.0 for the inactivation of bovine viruses during the manufacture of collagen type I from bovine hides. A variety of experimental model viruses for bovine viruses including bovine herpes virus (BHV), bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV), bovine parainfluenza 3 virus (BPIV-3), and bovine parvovirus (BPV), were chosen for the evaluation of viral inactivation efficacy. BHV, BVDV, BPIV-3, and BPV were effectively inactivated to undetectable levels within 1 h of 70% ethanol treatment for 24 h, with log reduction factors of ≥5.58, ≥5.32, ≥5.11, and ≥3.42, respectively. BHV, BVDV, BPIV-3, and BPV were also effectively inactivated to undetectable levels within 5 days of pepsin treatment for 14 days, with the log reduction factors of ≥7.08, ≥6.60, ≥5.60, and ≥3.59, respectively. The cumulative virus reduction factors of BHV, BVDV, BPIV-3, and BPV were ≥12.66, ≥11.92, ≥10.71, and ≥7.01. These results indicate that the production process for collagen type I from bovine hides has a sufficient virus-reducing capacity to achieve a high margin of virus safety.