Bioinspired Materials Science and Engineering

2Tubular Tissue Engineering Based on Microfluidics

Lixue Tang, Wenfu Zheng*, and Xingyu Jiang

Beijing Engineering Research Center for BioNanotechnology and CAS Key Lab for Biological Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for NanoScience and Technology, 11, BeiYiTiao, ZhongGuanCun, Beijing, 100190, China

2.1 Introduction

There are many tubular structures in the human body, such as blood vessels, lymphatic vessels, tracheae, guts, and the renal tubules. These tubular structures play important roles in supporting human life. However, diseases, injury, and complications may lead to large‐scale lesions of these tissues. For example, atherosclerosis may cause stenosis of the whole aorta and subsequent high mortality. Without medical help, these lesions cannot repair themselves. Autografts, allografts, and xenografts, although they have been used in clinics for some time, face many problems, such as limited donor source, immunological rejection, and risk of infection. Tissue engineering, as an emerging tissue‐repair technology, is a promising approach in treating large‐scale lesions in tubular structures. Microfluidics technology offers promising tools to precisely control the cellular microenvironment. Various cell manipulation techniques in microfluidics have been applied and been successful in tissue engineering. In this review, after a short introduction to the system of natural tubular structures and microfluidics, we focus on the combination of microfluidics, ...