Engineering Extracellular Microenvironment for Tissue Regeneration.

The environment around our cells is a highly dynamic network of biophysical and biochemical elements, which surrounds cells to provide support and transmits molecular signals to cellular communication easier. Controls of this environment are of crucial importance for the ability to direct cell behavior and tissue regeneration. In this review, we focus on the different components of the extracellular environment, such as extracellular matrix (ECM), extracellular vesicles (EVs) and growth factors (GFs) and introduce engineering approaches for these components, which can be used to achieve a higher degree of control over cellular activities and behaviors for tissue regeneration. Furthermore, we review the technologies established to engineer native-mimicking artificial components of the extracellular microenvironment for improved regenerative applications. This review presents a thorough analysis of the current research in extracellular environment engineering and monitoring, which will help the development of new tissue engineering strategies by utilizing different components of the extracellular microenvironment for regenerative medicine in the future.