State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, 310003, China; Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, 310003, China; Institute for Translational Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, 310029, China.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, China.
Biomaterials. 2018 Mar;157:161-176. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2017.11.027. Epub 2017 Nov 24.
Liver diseases can be caused by viral infection, metabolic disorder, alcohol consumption, carcinoma or injury, chronically progressing to end-stage liver disease or rapidly resulting in acute liver failure. In either situation, liver transplantation is most often sought for life saving, which is, however, significantly limited by severe shortage of organ donors. Until now, tremendous multi-disciplinary efforts have been dedicated to liver regenerative medicine, aiming at providing transplantable cells, microtissues, or bioengineered whole liver via tissue engineering, or maintaining partial liver functions via extracorporeal support. In both directions, new compatible biomaterials, stem cell sources, and bioengineering approaches have fast-forwarded liver regenerative medicine towards potential clinical applications. Another important progress in this field is the development of liver-on-a-chip technologies, which enable tissue engineering, disease modeling, and drug testing under biomimetic extracellular conditions. In this review, we aim to highlight the last decade's progress in liver regenerative medicine from liver tissue engineering, bioartificial liver devices (BAL), to liver-on-a-chip platforms, and then to present challenges ahead for further advancement.
肝脏疾病可由病毒感染、代谢紊乱、饮酒、癌症或损伤引起，慢性进展至终末期肝病或迅速导致急性肝功能衰竭。在这两种情况下，肝移植通常是救命的首选方法，但严重的器官供体短缺极大地限制了这一方法。迄今为止，大量多学科的努力致力于肝脏再生医学，旨在通过组织工程提供可移植的细胞、微组织或生物工程化全肝，或通过体外支持维持部分肝脏功能。在这两个方向上，新的相容性生物材料、干细胞来源和生物工程方法都使肝脏再生医学快速朝着潜在的临床应用发展。该领域的另一个重要进展是开发了芯片上肝脏技术，使组织工程、疾病建模和在仿生细胞外条件下的药物测试成为可能。在这篇综述中，我们旨在突出过去十年在肝脏再生医学方面的进展，从肝脏组织工程、生物人工肝脏装置 (BAL) 到芯片上肝脏平台，然后提出进一步发展的挑战。
