Tissue engineering based on cell sheet technology

Cell sheet technology enables novel approaches to tissue engineering without the use of biodegradable scaffolds. Cell sheet technology consists of a temperature-responsive culture dish, which enables reversible cell adhesion to and detachment from the dish surface by controllable hydrophobicity of the surface. This allows for a non-invasive harvest of cultured cells as an intact monolayer cell sheet including deposited extra cellular matrices. The monolayer cell sheet can be transplanted to host tissues without using biodegradable scaffolds and sutures. Thick tissue constructs and patterned cell sheets using two or more kinds of cell source are also developed by means of layered cell sheets in vitro. This Progress Report summarizes temperature-controlled cell adhesion-detachment behavior and applications of the cell sheet technology to regeneration of cornea, periodontal ligament, bladder epithelia, oesophageal epithelia, myocardium, and liver.