Suppression of the recipient immune response is a common component of tissue and organ transplantation strategies and has also been used as a method of mitigating the inflammatory and scar tissue response to many biomaterials. It is now recognized, however, that long-term functional tissue replacement not only benefits from an intact host immune response but also depends upon such a response. The present article reviews the limitations associated with the traditionally held view of avoiding the immune response, the ability of acellular biologic scaffold materials to modulate the host immune response and promote a functional tissue replacement outcome, and current strategies within the fields of tissue engineering and biomaterials to develop immune-responsive and immunoregulatory biomaterials.
Keywords: ECM bioscaffolds; host response; macrophage.