title: Engineering approaches to study fibrosis in 3-D in vitro systems.
abstract: Fibrotic diseases occur in virtually every tissue of the body and are a major cause of mortality, yet they remain largely untreatable and poorly understood on a mechanistic level. The development of anti-fibrotic agents has been hampered, in part, by the insufficient fibrosis biomimicry provided by traditional in vitro platforms. This review focuses on recent advancements toward creating 3-D platforms that mimic key features of fibrosis, as well as the application of novel imaging and sensor techniques to analyze dynamic extracellular matrix remodeling. Several opportunities are highlighted to apply new tools from the fields of biomaterials, imaging, and systems biology to yield pathophysiologically relevant in vitro platforms that improve our understanding of fibrosis and may enable identification of potential treatment targets.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, United States.
authors.forename: Ana M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Porras
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, United States.
authors.forename: Heather N
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Hutson
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, United States.
authors.forename: Anthony J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Berger
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, United States. Electronic address: kmasters@wisc.edu.
authors.forename: Kristyn S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Masters
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D060833:Cellular Microenvironment; D005109:Extracellular Matrix / Q000378:metabolism; D005355:Fibrosis / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D015335:Molecular Probes / Q000737:chemistry; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D015335:Molecular Probes