Trends in Biotechnology
Development of biocompatible synthetic extracellular matrices for tissue engineering
Section snippets
Design requirements of synthetic ECMs
All synthetic ECMs used to engineer tissues have three primary roles. First, the synthetic ECMs facilitate the localization and delivery of cells to specific sites in the body. Second, they define and maintain a three-dimensional space for the formation of new tissues with appropriate structure. Third, they guide the development of new tissues with appropriate function.
Synthetic ECMs provide an adhesion substrate for transplanted cells and serve as a delivery vehicle into specific sites in the
Materials for synthetic ECMs
The exogenous ECMs for tissue engineering can be fabricated from two classes of biomaterial: naturally derived materials and synthetic materials. Naturally occurring materials, such as collagen, have the potential advantage of specific cell interactions. However, these materials are isolated from human or animal tissue, and so are typically not available in large quantities and suffer from batch-to-batch variations. In addition, naturally derived materials offer limited versatility in designing
Fabrication of synthetic ECMs regulating gross tissue structure
Macroporous synthetic ECMs can regulate the organization of cells seeded into the matrix and the subsequent proliferation of the cells to form new tissues. A variety of processing techniques are available to fabricate synthetic ECMs from synthetic polymers, and various biodegradable polymers have been processed into a variety of configurations, including fibres, porous sponges and tubular structures.
Fibre-based scaffolds are typically composed of PGA or other crystalline polymers; PGA is
Regulating the phenotype of engineered tissues
The microenvironment of an engineered tissue must be properly regulated during the process of tissue development to induce the appropriate pattern of gene expression in cells forming the new tissue. The expression of genes by cells in engineered tissues may be regulated by multiple interactions with the microenvironment, including interactions with the adhesion surface, with other cells and with soluble growth factors, and mechanical stimuli imposed on the cells. Synthetic ECMs must provide the
Future prospects
Synthetic ECMs have proved to be suitable devices to transplant cells and guide tissue development from these cells. Although much progress has been made, many challenges still remain. The concept of combining synthetic materials with cell-recognition sites of naturally derived materials is very attractive. These hybrid materials could possess the favourable properties of synthetic materials, including widely varying mechanical and degradative properties, reproducible large-scale production and
Acknowledgements
We wish to acknowledge the financial support of the National Science Foundation (BES9501376), National Institute of Health (R29DK50715) and Reprogenesis for the authors' work.
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