Ikada Yoshito
Department of Bioenvironmental Medicine, Nara Medical University, Shijoh-cho 840, Nara 634-8521, Japan.
J R Soc Interface. 2006 Oct 22;3(10):589-601. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2006.0124.
Almost 30 years have passed since a term 'tissue engineering' was created to represent a new concept that focuses on regeneration of neotissues from cells with the support of biomaterials and growth factors. This interdisciplinary engineering has attracted much attention as a new therapeutic means that may overcome the drawbacks involved in the current artificial organs and organ transplantation that have been also aiming at replacing lost or severely damaged tissues or organs. However, the tissues regenerated by this tissue engineering and widely applied to patients are still very limited, including skin, bone, cartilage, capillary and periodontal tissues. What are the reasons for such slow advances in clinical applications of tissue engineering? This article gives the brief overview on the current tissue engineering, covering the fundamentals and applications. The fundamentals of tissue engineering involve the cell sources, scaffolds for cell expansion and differentiation and carriers for growth factors. Animal and human trials are the major part of the applications. Based on these results, some critical problems to be resolved for the advances of tissue engineering are addressed from the engineering point of view, emphasizing the close collaboration between medical doctors and biomaterials scientists.
“组织工程”这一术语被创造出来以代表一个新概念，即聚焦于在生物材料和生长因子的支持下从细胞再生新组织，至今已过去近30年。作为一种可能克服当前人工器官和器官移植所涉及缺点的新治疗手段，这种跨学科工程已引起广泛关注，而人工器官和器官移植也一直致力于替换缺失或严重受损的组织或器官。然而，通过这种组织工程再生并广泛应用于患者的组织仍然非常有限，包括皮肤、骨骼、软骨、毛细血管和牙周组织。组织工程临床应用进展如此缓慢的原因是什么呢？本文简要概述了当前的组织工程，涵盖其基本原理和应用。组织工程的基本原理涉及细胞来源、用于细胞扩增和分化的支架以及生长因子的载体。动物和人体试验是应用的主要部分。基于这些结果，从工程学角度探讨了组织工程进展中一些需要解决的关键问题，强调了医生和生物材料科学家之间的密切合作。
