Exp Mol Med.
2013 Nov;45(11):e57.
In situ tissue regeneration through host stem cell recruitment
- Affiliations
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- 1Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC, USA. jyoo@wakehealth.edu
Abstract
- The field of tissue engineering has made steady progress in translating various tissue applications. Although the classical tissue engineering strategy, which involves the use of culture-expanded cells and scaffolds to produce a tissue construct for implantation, has been validated, this approach involves extensive cell expansion steps, requiring a lot of time and laborious effort before implantation. To bypass this ex vivo process, a new approach has been introduced. In situ tissue regeneration utilizes the body's own regenerating capacity by mobilizing host endogenous stem cells or tissue-specific progenitor cells to the site of injury. This approach relies on development of a target-specific biomaterial scaffolding system that can effectively control the host microenvironment and mobilize host stem/progenitor cells to target tissues. An appropriate microenvironment provided by implanted scaffolds would facilitate recruitment of host cells that can be guided to regenerating structural and functional tissues.
