Bioprinting extracellular vesicles as a "cell-free" regenerative medicine approach

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Regenerative medicine involves the restoration of tissue or organ function via the regeneration of these structures. As promising regenerative medicine approaches, either extracellular vesicles (EVs) or bioprinting are emerging stars to regenerate various tissues and organs (i.e., bone and cardiac tissues). Emerging as highly attractive cell-free, off-the-shelf nanotherapeutic agents for tissue regeneration, EVs are bilayered lipid membrane particles that are secreted by all living cells and play a critical role as cell-to-cell communicators through an exchange of EV cargos of protein, genetic materials, and other biological components. 3D bioprinting, combining 3D printing and biology, is a state-of-the-art additive manufacturing technology that uses computer-aided processes to enable simultaneous patterning of 3D cells and tissue constructs in bioinks. Although developing an effective system for targeted EVs delivery remains challenging, 3D bioprinting may offer a promising means to improve EVs delivery efficiency with controlled loading and release. The potential application of 3D bioprinted EVs to regenerate tissues has attracted attention over the past few years. As such, it is timely to explore the potential and associated challenges of utilizing 3D bioprinted EVs as a novel "cell-free" alternative regenerative medicine approach. In this review, we describe the biogenesis

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

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