This review tries to summarize the efforts over the past 20 years to construct a tissue-engineered trachea. After illustrating the main technical bottlenecks faced nowadays, we discuss what might be the solutions to these bottlenecks. You may find out why the focus in this research field shifts dramatically from the construction of a tubular cartilage tissue to reepithelialization and revascula...

We have developed a new biodegradable scaffold that does not require any cell seeding to create an in-situ tissue-engineering vasculature (iTEV). Animal experiments were conducted to test its characteristics and long-term efficacy. An 8-mm tubular biodegradable scaffold, consisting of polyglycolide knitted fibers and an L-lactide and ε-caprolactone copolymer sponge with outer glycolide and ε-ca...

The aim of this study was the in vitro investigation of the change in mechanical properties of a fast-degrading electro-spun polymeric scaffold for the use in soft tissue regenerative implants. Tubular scaffolds were electro-spun from a DegraPol® D30 polyesther-urethane solution (target outer diameter: 5.0 mm; scaffold wall thickness: 0.99 ± 0.18 mm). Scaffold samples were subjected to hydrolyt...

The current tissue engineering paradigm is that successfully engineered thick tissues must include vasculature. As biological approaches alone, such as VEGF, have fallen short of their promises, one may look for an engineering approach to build microvasculature. Layer-by-layer approaches for customized fabrication of cell/scaffold constructs have shown some potential in building complex 3D stru...

Elastin, a principal structural component of native arteries, has distinct biological and mechanical advantages when used as a biomaterial; however, its low ultimate tensile strength has limited its use as an arterial conduit. We have developed a scaffold, consisting of a purified elastin tubular conduit strengthened with fibrin bonded layers of acellular small intestinal submucosa (aSIS) for p...

Dental-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) provide an advantageous therapeutic option for tissue engineering due to their high accessibility and bioavailability. However, delivering MSCs to defect sites while maintaining a high MSC survival rate is still a critical challenge in MSC-mediated tissue regeneration. Here, we tested the osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation capacity of dental p...

OBJECTIVE To test the effects of a continuous medium flow inside DegraPol scaffolds on the reepithelialization and revascularization processes of a tissue-engineered trachea prosthesis. METHODS In this proof-of-principle study a continuous medium flow was maintained within a tubular DegraPol scaffold by an inserted porous catheter connected to a pump system. The impact of the intra-scaffold m...