Molecular aspects of tissue engineering in the dental field

the potential to replace tissues lost as a result of trauma, cancer surgery, or organ dysfunction. The successful production, integration, and maintenance of any tissue-engineered product are a result of nu-merous molecular interactions inside and outside the cell. We consider the essential elements for success-ful tissue engineering to be a matrix scaffold, space, cells, and vasculature, each of which has a significant and distinct molecular underpinning (Fig. 1). Our approach capitalizes on these elements. Originally developed in the rat, our chamber model (Fig. 2) in-volves the placement of an arteriovenous loop (the vascular supply) in a polycarbonate chamber (pro-tected space) with the addition of cells and an extracellular matrix such as Matrigel or endogenous