Biomaterial Database

Regeneration and bioengineering of the gastrointestinal tract: current status and future perspectives. 2012

Giuseppe Orlando, and Jose E García-Arrarás, and Tom Soker, and Christopher Booth, and Brian Sanders, and Christina L Ross, and Paolo De Coppi, and Alan C Farney, and Jeffrey Rogers, and Robert J Stratta

Department of General Surgery, Section of Transplantation, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston Salem, NC, USA. gorlando@wakehealth.edu

The present review aims to illustrate the strategies that are being implemented in regenerative medicine to treat diseases that affect the digestive tract. Possible avenues are twofold: organ bioengineering, where cells are seeded on biological or synthetic scaffolding materials ex vivo and allowed to either mature in bioreactors or be implanted without undergoing any maturation; and regeneration per se, where the diseased tissue or organ is regenerated by recapitulation of its multi-step ontogenesis. This latter avenue may be induced either in vivo or ex vivo. While bioengineering technology has already manufactured segments of the digestive tract and sphincters, pure regeneration of any segment of the digestive tract has not yet been described. However, models of regeneration extrapolated from simple organisms are elucidating the complex yet fascinating mechanisms that regulate the ontogenesis of the digestive tract and are paving the way for the development of new regenerative technologies and methods.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D012038	Regeneration	The physiological renewal, repair, or replacement of tissue.	Endogenous Regeneration,Regeneration, Endogenous,Regenerations
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000818	Animals	Unicellular or multicellular, heterotrophic organisms, that have sensation and the power of voluntary movement. Under the older five kingdom paradigm, Animalia was one of the kingdoms. Under the modern three domain model, Animalia represents one of the many groups in the domain EUKARYOTA.	Animal,Metazoa,Animalia
D041981	Gastrointestinal Tract	Generally refers to the digestive structures stretching from the MOUTH to ANUS, but does not include the accessory glandular organs (LIVER; BILIARY TRACT; PANCREAS).	Digestive Tract,GI Tract,Digestive Tracts,GI Tracts,Gastrointestinal Tracts
D054457	Tissue Scaffolds	Cell growth support structures composed of BIOCOMPATIBLE MATERIALS. They are specially designed solid support matrices for cell attachment in TISSUE ENGINEERING and GUIDED TISSUE REGENERATION uses.	Tissue Scaffolding,Scaffold, Tissue,Scaffolding, Tissue,Scaffoldings, Tissue,Scaffolds, Tissue,Tissue Scaffold,Tissue Scaffoldings
D023822	Tissue Engineering	Generating tissue in vitro for clinical applications, such as replacing wounded tissues or impaired organs. The use of TISSUE SCAFFOLDING enables the generation of complex multi-layered tissues and tissue structures.	Engineering, Tissue