Immune-Mediated Tissue Regeneration Driven by a Biomaterial Scaffold: An Innovative Regenerative Medicine Strategy

One of the most important applications of tissue engineering is aiding in the healing and regeneration of damaged tissues. There are many methods, which can be used to control the healing process and direct it to complete regeneration of the damaged tissue. Considering advances in the understanding of different aspects of the healing process, it is obvious that the immune system and inflammatory factors which are excreted by immune cells play an important role in complete regeneration. Actually, without the presence of the immune system, the healing process would not progress properly. Recently, the direction of researches in immunotherapy is toward using tissue engineering techniques for control and manipulation of the activity of immune cells. In this approach, implantation of biomaterials and scaffolds could be utilized for the stimulation of immune cells and secretion of different cytokines in order to improve the healing process. Biomaterial engineering approaches can manipulate and improve the effectiveness of the immune cells on tissue regeneration process via changing scaffolds surface properties (e.g. topography, roughness, crosslinking, and porosity), shape and geometry, size and surface chemistry and also providing sustainable release of cytokines and cell therapy. In this review, we focus on different aspects of the immune system effects on tissue regeneration. We also overview the tissue engineering methods for control and manipulation of the immune cells, which are participating in the healing process.