Developing tissue engineering strategies for liver regeneration

The regenerative function of liver can be destroyed by viral infection, drug poisoning and tumorigenesis, resulting in irreversible damage. Numerous approaches in promoting liver repair intend to replace liver transplantation, which is faced with a shortage of donors. Owing to the significant advantages in cell programming and bioscaffold engineering, liver tissue engineering is considered to be the most promising alternative for mimicking liver microstructure, maintaining hepatic function or implanting whole liver. Cell sources gradually develop from primary hepatocytes, tumor cells, stem cell-induced cells to multiple cell coculture formats, spheroids and organoids, which have realized the improvement of cell function, overcome the problem of large-scale cell expansion and avoid the risk of immune rejection. Scaffolds, biocompatible materials are applied as cell carriers, and decellularized scaffolds and three-dimensional bioprinting liver pipeline structures are also used to accelerate cell colonization and proliferation. We enumerate sufficient research concerning liver tissue engineering in this review, including single and multiple cell sources, implantable and extracorporeal scaffold materials, and so on, providing critical conclusions and future implications of tissue engineering in liver regenerative applications.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-ND

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