This review explores advanced fabrication techniques for multilayered structures, suggesting bioreactors can enhance cell differentiation in tissue engineering.
Hollow tubular tissues play a vital role in the human body, facilitating the transport of nutrients and waste. Damage to these structures can lead to luminal narrowing or complete dysfunction, necessitating medical intervention. While stents remain the gold standard for repair, they are associated with significant complications. Tissue engineering offers a promising alternative by encapsulating cells within biomaterial scaffolds to regenerate native‐like tubular tissues. Given the multilayered complexity of these structures, advanced fabrication techniques are essential to achieve precise spatial and temporal control over cell distribution and scaffold architecture. While traditional methods rely on post‐fabrication cell seeding, biofabrication techniques are utilized to enable direct cell integration within scaffolds during fabrication. This review explores cutting‐edge strategies for engineering multilayered cell‐laden tubular constructs, including 3D bioprinting, cell‐embedded electrospinning, gel casting, self‐folding cell sheets, and microfluidic‐assisted assembly. Bioreactors play a crucial role in establishing dynamic culture conditions to further improve cell differentiation, extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition, and tissue remodeling and maturation. Special emphasis is placed on the application of these fabrication techniques and bioreactor systems in regenerating tubular structures such as the urethra, trachea, blood vessels, and esophagus, highlighting their potential to revolutionize tissue‐engineered tubular constructs.
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Maeseneer et al. (2025) studied this question.
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