Cell sheet technology for cardiac tissue engineering

In this chapter, we describe the methods for the fabrication and transfer/transplantation of 3D tissues by using cell sheet technology for cardiac tissue regeneration. A temperature-responsive culture surface can be fabricated by grafting a temperature-responsive polymer, poly(N- isopropylacrylamide), onto a polystyrene cell culture surface. Cells cultured confluently on such a culture surface can be recovered as an intact cell sheet, and functional three-dimensional (3D) tissues can then be easily fabricated by layering the recovered cell sheets without any scaffolds or complicated manipulation. Cardiac cell sheets, myoblast sheets, mesenchymal stem cell sheets, cardiac progenitor cell sheets, etc., which are prepared from temperature-responsive culture surfaces, can be easily transplanted onto heart tissues of animal models, and those cell sheet constructs enhance the cell transplant efficiency, resulting in the induction of effective therapy.