A rapidly magnetically assembled stem cell microtissue with "hamburger" architecture and enhanced vascularization capacity

Engineering Considerations on Large-Scale Cultured Meat Production

In recent decades, cultured meat has received considerable interest as a sustainable alternative to traditional meat products, showing promise for addressing the inherent problems associated with conventional meat production. However, current limitations on the scalability of production and extremely high production costs have prevented their widespread adoption. Therefore, it is important to develop novel engineering strategies to overcome the current limitations in large-scale cultured meat production. Such engineering considerations have the potential for advancements in cultured meat production by providing innovative and effective solutions to the prevailing challenges. In this review, we discuss how engineering strategies have been utilized to advance cultured meat technology by categorizing the production processes of cultured meat into three distinct steps: (1) cell preparation; (2) cultured meat fabrication; and (3) cultured meat maturation. For each step, we provide a comprehensive discussion of the recent progress and its implications. In particular, we focused on the engineering considerations involved in each step of cultured meat production, with specific emphasis on large-scale production.

Creating a Microenvironment to Give Wings to Dental Pulp Regeneration-Bioactive Scaffolds

Dental pulp and periapical diseases make patients suffer from acute pain and economic loss. Although root canal therapies, as demonstrated through evidence-based medicine, can relieve symptoms and are commonly employed by dentists, it is still difficult to fully restore a dental pulp's nutrition, sensory, and immune-regulation functions. In recent years, researchers have made significant progress in tissue engineering to regenerate dental pulp in a desired microenvironment. With breakthroughs in regenerative medicine and material science, bioactive scaffolds play a pivotal role in creating a suitable microenvironment for cell survival, proliferation, and differentiation, following dental restoration and regeneration. This article focuses on current challenges and novel perspectives about bioactive scaffolds in creating a microenvironment to promote dental pulp regeneration. We hope our readers will gain a deeper understanding and new inspiration of dental pulp regeneration through our summary.

Construction of adipose tissue using a silica expander capsule and cell sheet-assembled of decellularized adipose tissue

Delayed neovascularization and unstable adipose formation are major confounding factors in adipose tissue engineering. A system using decellularized adipose tissue (DAT), adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs), and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) has been preliminarily studied, but it requires optimization, as adipogenic and angiogenic capabilities for maintaining a stable construct shape are limited. The current study aimed to address these limitations. Our initial modification involved the addition of exogenous chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 2 (CCL2), which resulted in enhanced adipogenesis and angiogenesis. However, further improvement was required due to delayed blood recanalization. To further optimize the system, a vascularized fibrous capsule derived from an implanted silica expander was utilized as a second modification. We hypothesized this would function as both a microbioreactor to fix the seed cells and exogenous CCL2 locally and as a vascular bed to promote neovascularization. Compared with that of the CCL2 loaded ADSC-HUVECs cell sheet assembled DAT system, adding the silica expander capsule resulted in significantly increased construct stability, new vessel intensity, a greater number of Oil Red O-positive lipid droplets, more enhanced tissue remodeling, and upregulated peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) & leptin expression. Thus, these two modifications helped optimize the currently available ADSC-HUVEC cell sheet assembled DAT system, providing an adipose tissue construction strategy with enhanced adipogenesis and angiogenesis to reconstruct soft tissue defects. Moreover, close-to-normal leptin expression provided the engineered adipose tissue with a glucometabolic function, in addition to remodeling capabilities. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: Delayed neovascularization and unstable adipose formation are the two major problems in tissue engineering adipose. Here, we introduced an adipose tissue engineering construction strategy using a silica expander capsule along with hADSCs-HUVECs cell sheet-assembled DAT in a CCL2-rich microenvironment. Our data suggested that CCL2 could improve angiogenesis and adipogenesis in vitro and in vivo. The addition of tissue expander capsule could further improve the stability of construction and fabricated adipose tissue with increased new vessel intensity, greater numbers of Oil Red O-positive lipid droplets, more enhanced tissue remodeling, and upregulated leptin expression. CCL2 and expander capsule can have clinical utility for soft tissue defects repair, and these two factors can be useful in other tissue engineering.