Inexpensive production of near-native engineered stromas.

Although the self-assembly approach is an efficient method for the production of engineered physiological and pathological tissues, avoiding the use of exogenous materials, it nevertheless remains expensive and requires dexterity, which are features incompatible with large-scale production. We propose a modification to this technique to make easier the production of mesenchymal compartment, to reduce the cost and to improve the histological quality of the self-assembled tissues. The stroma produced by this novel approach allowed epithelial cell differentiation, resulting in a pseudostratified epithelium that shared several features with native tissues.

Lysophosphatidic acid enhances collagen deposition and matrix thickening in engineered tissue.

The time needed to produce engineered tissue is critical. A self-assembly approach provided excellent results regarding biological functions and cell differentiation because it closely respected the microenvironment of cells. Nevertheless, the technique was time consuming for producing tissue equivalents with enough extracellular matrix to allow manipulations.