Cell delivery: from cell transplantation to organ engineering.
Cell populations derived from adult tissue and stem cells possess a great expectation for the treatment of several diseases. Great efforts have been made to generate cells with therapeutic impact from stem cells. However, it is clear that the development of systems to deliver such cells to induce efficient engraftment, growth, and function is a real necessity. Biologic and artificial scaffolds have received significant attention for their potential therapeutic application when use to form tissues in vitro and facilitate engraftment in vivo. Ultimately more sophisticated methods for decellularization of organs have been successfully used in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. These decellularized tissues and organs appear to provide bioactive molecules and bioinductive properties to induce homing, differentiation, and proliferation of cells. The combination of decellularized organs and stem cells may dramatically improve the survival, engraftment, and fate control of transplanted stem cells and their ultimate clinical utility, opening the doors to a new era of organ engineering.
Soto-Gutierrez
Alejandro
A
Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Shriners Hospitals for Children, Center for Engineering in Medicine, Boston, MA 76104, USA. alejandro.sotogutierrez@chp.edu
Yagi
Hiroshi
H
Uygun
Basak E
BE
Navarro-Alvarez
Nalu
N
Uygun
Korkut
K
Kobayashi
Naoya
N
Yang
Yong-Guang
YG
Yarmush
Martin L
ML
D000818:Animals; D057005:Bioengineering; D017690:Cell Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*