Chapter 18 - Application of induced pluripotent stem cells in tissue engineering

Abstract

Tissue engineering and stem cell research have made great progresses in overcoming the problems caused by tissue damage in the body and the side effects of traditional therapies. Although a wide range of techniques are used in the field of tissue engineering, tissue and stem cell engineering represents a viable alternative source for the treatment of complex lesions in various tissues. The most appropriate methods for replacing damaged tissues require various techniques that face many problems. Generally, the final stage of organ failure is treated with tissue transplantation, but the results are usually not completely satisfactory due to the effects of immunosuppression, increasing the number of failed transplants, and decreasing the number of organ donors. Hence, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering are working to understand the mechanisms of tissue regeneration, and to find a way to regenerate damaged tissues. Stem cells are considered as one of the important components in tissue engineering, which due to the polymer structure of tissue engineering scaffolds can repair or regenerate the desired tissue. One of the newest stem cells introduced is induced multipotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are derived from epithelial cells and are multipotent. iPSC lines can differentiate into most cells in the body, just like embryonic stem cells (ESCs). These cells also have the potential to become multifunctional clinical and research tools for understanding and modeling disease, developing and screening selective drugs, and delivering alternative-cell therapy to support regenerative medicine. These cells have attracted the attention of many scientists because they are taken from the patient in terms of nonrejection as well as ethical issues in ESCs. This chapter will review the application of iPSCs in various areas of tissue engineering that have been reported so far.