Cell sheet engineering for the injured heart.

Myocardial infarction and subsequent heart failure are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Tissue engineering is emerging as promising alternative approach to treat these kinds of diseases. However, conventional applications using biodegradable scaffolds have disadvantages, such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, and cytotoxicity, and this limits its efficacy. Cell sheet engineering without artificial scaffolds to form new myocardial constructs avoids the shortcomings of traditional tissue engineering approaches using scaffolds. We hypothesize that cell sheet engineering may be a promising strategy for cardiac tissue reconstruction.