Microenvironmental control of interstitial flow around pancreatic islets effectively maintains islet function in vitro.

Exosomes are nanosized vesicles (30–140 nm) of endocytic origin that play important roles in regenerative medicine. They are derived from cell membranes during endocytic internalization and stabilize in biological fluids such as blood and synovia. Temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis (TMJ OA) is a degenerative disease, which, in addition to chronic pain, is characterized by progressive cartilage breakdown, condylar bone remodeling, and synovitis. However, traditional clinical treatments have limited symptom- and structure-modifying effects to restore damaged cartilage and other TMJ tissues. This is due to the limited self-healing capacity of condylar cartilage. Recently, stem-cell-derived exosomes have been studied as an alternative therapeutic approach to tissue repair and regeneration. It is known that trophic regulation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) has anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects under pathological conditions, and research on MSC-derived exosomes is rapidly accumulating. MSC-derived exosomes mimic the major therapeutic effects of MSCs. They affect the activity of immune effector cells and possess multilineage differentiation potential, including chondrogenic and osteogenic differentiation. Furthermore, exosomes are capable of regenerating cartilage or osseous compartments and restoring injured tissues and can treat dysfunction and pain caused by TMJ OA. In this review, we looked at the uniqueness of TMJ, the pathogenesis of TMJ OA, and the potential role of MSC-derived exosomes for TMJ cartilage and bone regeneration.

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During the last decades, the engineering of well-defined 3D tissues has attracted great attention because it provides in vivo mimicking environment and can be a building block for the engineering of bioartificial organs. In this Review, diverse engineering methods of 3D tissues using microscale devices are introduced. Recent progress of microtechnologies has enabled the development of microplatforms for bottom-up assembly of diverse shaped 3D tissues consisting of various cells. Micro hanging-drop plates, microfluidic chips, and arrayed microwells are the typical examples. The encapsulation of cells in hydrogel microspheres and microfibers allows the engineering of 3D microtissues with diverse shapes. Applications of 3D microtissues in biomedical fields are described, and the future direction of microplatform-based engineering of 3D micro-tissues is discussed.