Abstract
Toward the establishment of next generation therapy for liver diseases and diabetes mellitus,approaches based on cell transplantation and tissue engineering have been actively investigated. Our group has established several innovative approaches to create functional liver and islet tissues in vivo using isolated mature parenchymal cells(hepatocytes and islet cells). To achieve sustained survival of the cells followed by expressing higher functionality, cells need to be strategically aligned in vivo. Our group has particularly focused attention on aligning the cells to mimic microstructure of the liver and islets. This review highlights morphology and function of the ectopically engineered liver and islet tissues in animal models.
