%0 Journal Article
%T Techniques for fabrication and construction of three-dimensional scaffolds for tissue engineering
%A Lu T
%A Li Y
%A Chen T
%J International Journal of Nanomedicine
%D 2013
%I Dove Medical Press
%X Tingli Lu,1,* Yuhui Li,1,* Tao Chen1,21Key Laboratory of Space Bioscience and Biotechnology, School of Life Science, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 2Liposome Research Centre, Xi'an, China*These authors contributed equally to this workAbstract: Three-dimensional biomimetic scaffolds have widespread applications in biomedical tissue engineering because of their nanoscaled architecture, eg, nanofibers and nanopores, similar to the native extracellular matrix. In the conventional ˇ°top-downˇ± approach, cells are seeded onto a biocompatible and biodegradable scaffold, in which cells are expected to populate in the scaffold and create their own extracellular matrix. The top-down approach based on these scaffolds has successfully engineered thin tissues, including skin, bladder, and cartilage in vitro. However, it is still a challenge to fabricate complex and functional tissues (eg, liver and kidney) due to the lack of vascularization systems and limited diffusion properties of these large biomimetic scaffolds. The emerging ˇ°bottom-upˇ± method may hold great potential to address these challenges, and focuses on fabricating microscale tissue building blocks with a specific microarchitecture and assembling these units to engineer larger tissue constructs from the bottom up. In this review, state-of-the-art methods for fabrication of three-dimensional biomimetic scaffolds are presented, and their advantages and drawbacks are discussed. The bottom-up methods used to assemble microscale building blocks (eg, microscale hydrogels) for tissue engineering are also reviewed. Finally, perspectives on future development of the bottom-up approach for tissue engineering are addressed.Keywords: three-dimensional, extracellular matrix scaffolds, bottom-up, tissue engineering
%U http://www.dovepress.com/techniques-for-fabrication-and-construction-of-three-dimensional-scaff-a11998