Bioengineered vocal fold mucosa for voice restoration

Area of Science:

• Regenerative Medicine
• Biomaterials Science
• Otorhinolaryngology

Background:

• Voice impairment due to vocal fold (VF) fibrosis or tissue loss presents limited treatment options.
• Developing a bioengineered VF mucosa is crucial for addressing communication loss and its associated costs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To engineer a transplantable VF mucosa capable of biomechanical and physiological functions.
• To assess the potential of this engineered tissue for restoring voice function.

Main Methods:

• Isolated primary human VF fibroblasts and epithelial cells for coculture under organotypic conditions.
• Evaluated engineered mucosae morphology, proteome, barrier function, and biomechanical properties.
• Grafted engineered mucosae into canine larynges ex vivo and humanized mice in vivo.

Main Results:

• Engineered mucosae exhibited native-like morphology, extracellular matrix complexity, and rudimentary barrier function.
• Ex vivo grafting into canine larynges produced vibratory behavior and acoustic output comparable to native VF tissue.
• In vivo grafting into humanized mice demonstrated tissue survival and good tolerability by the human adaptive immune system.

Conclusions:

• This tissue engineering approach successfully created a bioengineered VF mucosa with promising functional and immunological characteristics.
• The engineered VF mucosa has the potential to restore voice function in patients with untreatable VF mucosal diseases.