Strategies to reconstruct a functional urethral substitute by self-assembly method

Current urethral reconstruction procedures present many related complications. Moreover, the availability of urologic tissue is limited. Free of exogenous biomaterials, synthetic polymers or acellular matrices, a new tissue engineering technology has been optimized. This technique is known as self-assembly. The fibroblasts produce and assemble their own extracellular matrix to form a tissue very similar to native one. Goals are: to reconstruct a human urethral substitute containing a mature urothelium and a functional vascular network. The same substitute will also be produced using rabbit cells to allow autologous in vivo grafting. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.