Engineering of Immune Microenvironment for Enhanced Tissue Remodeling

Abstract

The capability to restore the structure and function of tissues damaged by fatal diseases and trauma is essential for living organisms. Various tissue engineering approaches have been applied in lesions to enhance tissue regeneration after injuries and diseases in living organisms. However, unforeseen immune reactions by the treatments interfere with successful healing and reduce the therapeutic efficacy of the strategies. The immune system is known to play essential roles in the regulation of the microenvironment and recruitment of cells that directly or indirectly participate in tissue remodeling in defects. Accordingly, regenerative immune engineering has emerged as a novel approach toward efficiently inducing regeneration using engineering techniques that modulate the immune system. It is aimed at providing a favorable immune microenvironment based on the controlled balance between pro-inflammation and anti-inflammation. In this review, we introduce recent developments in immune engineering therapeutics based on various cell types and biomaterials. These developments could potentially overcome the therapeutic limitations of tissue remodeling.

Keywords: Biomaterials; Cell therapy; Immune engineering; Regeneration; Tissue engineering.

Fig. 1

Schematic illustration of immune microenvironment and its role in tissue remodeling at the lesion. Line arrows indicate cellular migration into the lesion. Dashed arrows indicate differentiation of immunocytes. Treg; regulatory T cell, Th2; T helper 2 cell, M1; type-1 macrophage, M2; type-2 macrophage, TGF-β; transforming growth factor-β, IL; Interleukin, IFN-γ; interferon-γ, TNF-α; tumor necrosis factor-α, SAP; serum amyloid P, VEGF; vascular endothelial growth factor