Elastin is a key component of the extracellular matrix in numerous "elastic" tissues, such as arteries or the lung. The role of elastin extends beyond providing the histiotypic elasticity. In the lung, for example, elastin is esserntial for aleoal morphogenesis and functional differentiation of alveolar progenitor cells. In the wake of the current exciting developments about the decellularization/ recellularization of complex solid organs, such as the lung, I will focus on a key issue related to Lung Regenerative Engineering: generation and/or retention of biomimetic, bioactive scaffolds that might facilitate alveolar morphogenesis. Specifically, I will focus on recent studies by others and us that highlight the essentail role that elastin and other matricellular proteins play in lung tissue and regenerative engineering, i.e., for generating distal lung tissue constructs in vitro. Such engineered tissues might be useful as a potential treatment modality for numerous pediatric and adult lung diseases and/or as high-fidelity tissue models for accelerated drug discovery and toxicity testing.
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