Technique accelerates organ replacement
21 Aug 2013
A novel approach to organising cells via 3-D tissue engineering could be the next step towards viable tissue development, according to research.
Researchers at Singapore’s Institute of Bioenginnering and Nanotechnology (IBN) this week announced a technique which organised cells and their microenvironments in hydrogel fibres to provide a template for assembling complex structures such as liver or fat tissues.
Professor Jackie Ying, IBN executive director, said: “Our tissue engineering approach gives researchers great control and flexibility over the arrangement of individual cell types, making it possible to engineer prevascularised tissue constructs easily.”
To ensure tissue development, IBN team leader and principle research scientist Dr Andrew Wan believes that the success of an engineered implant lies in its ability to rapidly integrate with a patient’s circulatory system, essential for the survival of cells within the implant.
Moreover, integration would also facilitate signalling between the cells and blood vessels, which is important for tissue development.
Our tissue engineering approach gives researchers great control and flexibility over the arrangement of individual cell types
IBN executive director professor Jackie Ying
Previous efforts to engineer cellular structures for use with human organ replacement have, until now, been unsuccessful.
According to IBN researchers, such limitations have been overcome via the use of interfacial polyelectrolyte complexation (IPC) fibre assembly, a unique cell patterning technology designed to produce cell-laden hydrogel fibres under aqueous conditions at room temperature.
IBN’s technique allows researchers to incorporate different cell types separately into different fibres, and these cell-laden fibres may then be assembled into more complex constructs with hierarchical tissue structures.
Additionally, researchers were able to tailor the microenvironment for each cell type for optimal functionality by incorporating the appropriate factors.
Using the IPC technique, researchers have engineered an endothelial vessel network, as well as cell-patterned fat and liver tissue constructs, which have successfully integrated with the host circulatory system in a mouse model and produced vascularised tissues, according to the IBN.
