Bioengineering and regeneration of gastrointestinal tissue: where are we now and what comes next?

The field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine has been applied to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract for a couple decades. Several achievements have been accomplished that provide promising tools for treating diseases of the GI tract.

The work described in this review covers the traditional aspect of using cells and scaffolds to replace parts of the tract. Several studies investigated different types of biomaterials and different types of cells. A more recent approach involved the use of gut-derived organoid units that can differentiate into all gut cell layers. The most recent approach introduced the use of organ-on-a-chip concept to understand the physiology and pathophysiology of the GI system.

The different approaches tackle the diseases of the GI tract from different perspectives. While all these different approaches provide a promising and encouraging future for this field, the translational aspect is yet to be studied.