Tissue Engineering for Mimics and Modulations of Immune Functions

In the field of regenerative medicine, advances in tissue engineering have surpassed the reconstruction of individual tissues or organs and begun to work towards engineering systemic factors such as immune objects and functions. The immune system plays a crucial role in protecting and regulating systemic functions in the human body. Engineered immune tissues and organs have shown potential in recovering dysfunctions and aplasia of the immune system and the evasion from immune-mediated inflammatory responses and rejection elicited by engineered implants from allogeneic or xenogeneic sources are also being pursued to facilitate clinical transplantation of tissue engineered grafts. Here, current progress in tissue engineering to mimic or modulate immune functions is reviewed and elaborated from two perspectives: 1) engineering of immune tissues and organs per se and 2) immune evasion of host immunoinflammatory rejection by tissue-engineered implants.