I am working on drug delivery to skin, I want to analysis the amount of the drug in dermis and epidermis layer. I have tried the heating method but it does not separate the layers from each other completely
A good method to separate dermis from cutis is, to shave the mice, after euthanasia tu cut the skin on the level of the base of the tail, push the closed scissors along the spine up to the neck, then open the scissoras and pull them back so as to separate the scin from the back, then cut off the skin and spread it on a thick carton, then , with a hammer and a punch biopsystanze (piercing stanze) cut out several ca. 3mm in diameter biopsies, and put it overnight in the fridge (4oC) in 2M NaBr+1mM DMSF. Then you take every ring from the mixture and using a pen with erasor gum at its end, you can easily separate (with the erasor) the dermis from the cutis - put it into PBS in ice to further elaboration. This method was used mainly to further Western Blot (after homogenization of the samples). I learned it in the Ralf Paus' group.