Harnessing wound healing and regeneration for tissue engineering
Harnessing wound healing and regeneration for tissue engineering
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DOI：
10.1042/bst0330413
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发表时间：
2005-04-01
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Ferguson, MWJ
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Metcalfe, AD;Ferguson, MWJ
生物医学科学在理解细胞如何生长成功能组织方面取得了重大进展，用于实现这一目标的信号机制正在慢慢被剖析。组织工程是将这些知识应用于器官的构建或修复，包括皮肤，身体中最大的器官。通常，工程组织是活细胞和支持基质的组合。除了作为烧伤覆盖物，工程皮肤替代品可以帮助糖尿病足溃疡患者。今天，大多数这些溃疡的治疗方法包括抗生素，葡萄糖控制，特殊的鞋子和频繁的清洁和包扎。这种治疗的结果往往是令人失望和无效的，疤痕仍然是一个主要的问题，机械，美容和心理。在我们的团队中，我们正试图通过研究皮肤组织工程的新方法来解决这个问题。我们正在确定新的治疗操作，以提高组织工程真皮构建体和宿主之间的整合程度，既通过生长因子的分子操作，也通过理解和利用再生生物学的机制。出于本概述的目的，我们将主要集中在这两种方法中的后一种，因为我们已经鉴定了一种新的小鼠突变体，其在耳损伤后完全且完美地再生皮肤和软骨成分。这种实验动物将使我们不仅能够表征参与再生过程的新基因，而且还可以利用这些动物的细胞在人造皮肤等同物中评估它们与正常细胞相比的行为。这种方法应该使我们能够创建一个组织工程替代品，它更接近于正常的局部皮肤显微解剖学和生理学，允许更好地整合到主机与最小或没有疤痕。
Biomedical science has made major advances in understanding how cells grow into functioning tissue and the signalling mechanisms used to achieve this are slowly being dissected. Tissue engineering is the application of that knowledge to the building or repairing of organs, including skin, the largest organ in the body. Generally, engineered tissue is a combination of living cells and a supporting matrix. Besides serving as burn coverings, engineered skin substitutes can help patients with diabetic foot ulcers. Today, most of these ulcers are treated with an approach that includes antibiotics, glucose control, special shoes and frequent cleaning and bandaging. The results of such treatments are often disappointing and ineffectual, and scarring remains a major problem, mechanically, cosmetically and psychologically. Within our group we are attempting to address this by investigating novel approaches to skin tissue engineering. We are identifying novel therapeutic manipulations to improve the degree of integration between a tissue engineered dermal construct and the host by both molecular manipulation of growth factors but also by understanding and harnessing mechanisms of regenerative biology. For the purpose of this summary, we will concentrate primarily on the latter of these two approaches in that we have identified a novel mouse mutant that completely and perfectly regenerates skin and cartilaginous components following ear injury. This experimental animal will allow us to characterize not only novel genes involved in the regeneration process but also to utilize cells from such animals in artificial skin equivalents to assess their behaviour compared with normal cells. This approach should allow us to create a tissue-engineered substitute, which more closely resembles the normal regional microanatomy and physiology of the skin, allowing better integration to the host with minimal or no scarring.