Trends in Biotechnology
Volume 16, Issue 5, 1 December 1998, Pages 224-230
Journal home page for Trends in Biotechnology

Development of biocompatible synthetic extracellular matrices for tissue engineering

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-7799(98)01191-3Get rights and content

Abstract

Tissue engineering may provide an alternative to organ and tissue transplantation, both of which suffer from a limitation of supply. Cell transplantation using biodegradable synthetic extracellular matrices offers the possibility of creating completely natural new tissues and so replacing lost or malfunctioning organs or tissues. Synthetic extracellular matrices fabricated from biocompatible, biodegradable polymers play an important role in the formation of functional new tissue from transplanted cells. They provide a temporary scaffolding to guide new tissue growth and organization, and may provide specific signals intended to retain tissue-specific gene expression.

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.

References (43)

  • R.O. Hynes

    Cell

    (1992)
  • C.K. Colton

    Cell Transplant.

    (1995)
  • A. Atala et al.

    J. Urol.

    (1994)
  • O. Smidsrød et al.

    Trends Biotechnol.

    (1990)
  • D.J. Mooney

    Biomaterials

    (1996)
  • W.C. Puelacher et al.

    Biomaterials

    (1994)
  • A. Atala et al.

    J. Urol.

    (1992)
  • A.G. Mikos

    Polymer

    (1994)
  • D.J. Mooney et al.

    Biomaterials

    (1996)
  • W.C. Puelacher et al.

    Int. J. Oral. Maxillofac. Surg.

    (1994)
  • R. Langer et al.

    Science

    (1993)
  • J. Folkman et al.

    Nature

    (1980)
  • A.J. Putnam et al.

    Nat. Med.

    (1996)
  • Alberts, B., Bray, D., Lewis, J., Raff, M., Roberts, K. and Watson, J. D. (1994) in Molecular Biology of the Cell, pp....
  • T. Nishida et al.

    Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci.

    (1988)
  • P.A. Parsons-Wingerter et al.

    Biotechnol. Prog.

    (1993)
  • Deuel, T. F. (1997) in Principles of Tissue Engineering (Lanza, R. P., Langer, R. and Chick, W. L., eds), pp. 133–149,...
  • J.A. Hubbell

    Biotechnology

    (1995)
  • D.J. Mooney

    Biotechnol. Bioeng.

    (1996)
  • Banes, A. J. (1993) in Physical Forces and the Mammalian Cell (Frangos, J. A., ed.), pp. 81–123, Academic...
  • Mooney, D. J. and Langer, R. (1995) in The Biomedical Engineering Handbook (Brozino, J. D., ed.), pp. 1609–1618, CRC...
  • Cited by (905)

    • Heterogeneous porous PLLA/PCL fibrous scaffold for bone tissue regeneration

      2023, International Journal of Biological Macromolecules
    • Materials for Biocompatible Piezoelectric Devices

      2023, Encyclopedia of Materials: Electronics
    • Biodegradable and biocompatible polymer nanocomposites for tissue engineering applications

      2023, Biodegradable and Biocompatible Polymer Nanocomposites: Processing, Characterization, and Applications
    • Physicochemical evaluation of the acellular tracheal graft for tissue remodeling

      2023, Materials Today: Proceedings
      Citation Excerpt :

      The scaffold degradation rate varies significantly with the site of scaffold implantation and depends on the availability and/or concentration of enzymes at the implanted site. The concentration of the collagenase enzyme in the human body varies from tissue to tissue, e.g. the concentration of the collagenase enzyme in human skin ranges from 0.05 to 0.075 % [32]. Therefore, to evaluate the applicability of our fabricated scaffold in skin tissue engineering, we studied the biodegradation under enzymatic conditions (in the presence of collagenase (COL)) as well as under non-enzymatic conditions (control) by measuring (%) the weight loss of the scaffold among the enzymatic and non-enzymatic conditions at different time intervals (Fig. 5, Table 1).

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text