Tissue-Engineered Microvessels: A Review of Current Engineering Strategies and Applications.

Abstract

Microvessels, including arterioles, capillaries, and venules, play an important role in regulating blood flow, enabling nutrient and waste exchange, and facilitating immune surveillance. Due to their important roles in maintaining normal function in human tissues, a substantial effort has been devoted to developing tissue-engineered models to study endothelium-related biology and pathology. Various engineering strategies have been developed to recapitulate the structural, cellular, and molecular hallmarks of native human microvessels in vitro. In this review, we first summarized recent progress in engineering approaches, key components, and culture platforms for tissue-engineered human microvessel models. Then, we review tissue-specific microvessel models of the human brain and other organs, followed by the major applications of tissue-engineered human microvessels in modeling development, diseases, drug screening and delivery, and vascularization in tissue engineering. Finally, we discuss the future research directions for the field. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.