Impact of Proteases in Tissue Engineering and Regeneration

Regenerative medicine and reconstructive surgery is often limited by the availability of normal tissue. Tissue engineering provides promise in the development of “artificial tissues”. Recent advances in the field of tissue engineering have made the goal of constructing whole organs and tissue types to replace damaged, injured or missing body tissue with biologically compatible substitutes. To create neo-organs two components are essential. Scaffolds to carry the second component the cells. To ensure survival of the bioartifical tissue the scaffold matrix components must be remodeled. Within this process matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are the key enzymes. Naturally matrix metalloproteinases are the major proteins in the cell associated extracellular-matrix-remodeling of physiological and pathological processes. They share a highly conserved structure of the individual domains with a number of identifiable modules linked to their specific functions.