Top-Down Hierarchical Allograft Engineering

More than 40 years of intensive research in tissue engineering have not produced clinically transplantable bioartificial organs. This limitation is intrinsic to the biological complexity of creating transplantable organs from the bottom-up using scaffolds seeded with stem cells. In contrast, allograft transplantation provides fully functional and architecturally organized organs at a level that no current bioengineering platform is even close to reproducing.

This review defines the concept of allograft engineering: a top-down, allograft-centered paradigm that begins with the intact donor allograft and applies targeted bioengineering techniques to improve the suitability of the graft for transplantation. This makes allograft engineering across the following hierarchical levels possible: cellular modification to create chimeric grafts; molecular modification to alter the graft microenvironment; and genetic modification to reprogram graft gene expression.

Clinical translation of this approach has the potential to transform the field of transplantation by delivering enhanced allografts that have increased availability, resistance to ischemia-reperfusion injury, and reduced immunogenicity.