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Abstract
The liver performs a wide range of biological functions that are essential to body homeostasis. Damage to liver tissue can result in reduced organ function, and if chronic in nature can lead to organ scarring and progressive disease. Currently, donor liver transplantation is the only longterm treatment for end-stage liver disease. However, orthotopic organ transplantation suffers from several drawbacks that include organ scarcity and lifelong immunosuppression. Therefore, new therapeutic strategies are required. One promising strategy is the engineering of implantable and vascularized liver tissue. This resource could also be used to build the next generation of liver tissue models to better understand human health, disease and aging in vitro. This article reviews recent progress in the field of liver tissue bioengineering, including microfluidic-based systems, bio-printed vascularized tissue, liver spheroids and organoid models, and the induction of angiogenesis in vivo.
Acknowledgment
We acknowledge the support of Department of Regenerative Medicine, Royan Institute.
Authors’ contributions
P.D, M.H, and M.V conceived the idea. P.D, D.C.H, and M.V were involved in writing and editing the manuscript. N.R designed and prepared the figure. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Disclosure statement
C.O.I: Professor David Hay is co-founder, director and shareholder in Stimuliver ApS and Stemnovate Limiterd. The other authors have no conflict of interest. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Figure 1. Four different strategies which can be used for vascularization in liver tissue engineering.
