title: Cell Sheet-Based Tissue Engineering for Organizing Anisotropic Tissue Constructs Produced Using Microfabricated Thermoresponsive Substrates.
abstract: In some native tissues, appropriate microstructures, including orientation of the cell/extracellular matrix, provide specific mechanical and biological functions. For example, skeletal muscle is made of oriented myofibers that is responsible for the mechanical function. Native artery and myocardial tissues are organized three-dimensionally by stacking sheet-like tissues of aligned cells. Therefore, to construct any kind of complex tissue, the microstructures of cells such as myotubes, smooth muscle cells, and cardiomyocytes also need to be organized three-dimensionally just as in the native tissues of the body. Cell sheet-based tissue engineering allows the production of scaffold-free engineered tissues through a layer-by-layer construction technique. Recently, using microfabricated thermoresponsive substrates, aligned cells are being harvested as single continuous cell sheets. The cell sheets act as anisotropic tissue units to build three-dimensional tissue constructs with the appropriate anisotropy. This cell sheet-based technology is straightforward and has the potential to engineer a wide variety of complex tissues. In addition, due to the scaffold-free cell-dense environment, the physical and biological cell-cell interactions of these cell sheet constructs exhibit unique cell behaviors. These advantages will provide important clues to enable the production of well-organized tissues that closely mimic the structure and function of native tissues, required for the future of tissue engineering.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering and Science, Tokyo Women's Medical University, 8-1 Kawada-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-8666, Japan.
authors.forename: Hironobu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering and Science, Tokyo Women's Medical University, 8-1 Kawada-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-8666, Japan.
authors.forename: Teruo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Okano
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016880:Anisotropy; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D055616:Microtechnology / Q000379:methods*; D013696:Temperature; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds / Q000737:chemistry*
keywords: cell orientation; cell sheets; mesenchymal stem cells; myoblasts; smooth muscle cells; thermoresponsive polymers; tissue engineering