ABSTRACT The shortage of organs for therapeutic transplantation is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. Despite significant advances in the generation of functional tissues in vitro, the efforts in this area have been hampered by the lack of suitable organ-specific cell sources, as well as the lack of matrices that not only promote the growth and maturation of these cell sources, but also contain vascular networks capable of nutrient delivery and gas exchange. Recent developments and findings have increasingly turned to developmental biology as a roadmap for the generation of progenitor or organ-specific cells from different stem cell sources. These advances, combined with new insights into the behavior of these cells when cultured in decellularized organ matrices, has led to the concept of organ regeneration by recellularization. Despite many remaining hurdles, the ability to generate functional organ tissue in this manner would address the clinical shortage of organs for transplantation.
Buy this Article
|