IMR Press / FBL / Volume 17 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.2741/4002

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article

Cardiac tissue engineering: current state and perspectives

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1 Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, 200 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3E5
2 Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, 164 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G9
3 Toronto General Research Institute, University Health Network, 101 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1L7
4 Heart and Stroke/Richard Lewar Centre of Excellence, University of Toronto, 150 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3E2
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2012, 17(4), 1533–1550; https://doi.org/10.2741/4002
Published: 1 January 2012
Abstract

The goal of cardiac tissue engineering is to treat cardiovascular diseases through the implantation of engineered functional tissue replacements or the injection of cells and biomaterials, as well as to provide engineered cardiac constructs that can be used as an in vitro model of healthy or diseased heart tissues. This field is rapidly advancing with the new discoveries and improvements in stem cell technologies, materials science, and bioreactor design. In this review, some of the progress made in cardiac tissue engineering in the recent years, as well as the challenges that need to be overcome in future studies, will be discussed. The topics include the advances in engineering stem cell-derived cardiac tissues, the use of natural or synthetic polymers and decellularized organs as engineering scaffolds, the scaffold-free cell sheet engineering approach, the application of perfusion and mechanical or electrical stimulation in bioreactors, the organization of cardiac cells through microfabrication techniques, and the vascularization of engineered cardiac tissues in vitro and in vivo.

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