Self-assembly and self-organization have recently emerged as robust scaffold-free tissue engineering methodologies that can be used to generate various tissues, including cartilage, vessel, and liver. Self-assembly, in particular, is a scaffold-free platform for tissue engineering that does not require the input of exogenous energy to the system. Although self-assembly can generate functional tissues, most notably neocartilage, the mechanisms of self-assembly remain unclear. To study the self-assembling process, we used articular chondrocytes as a model to identify parameters that can affect this process. Specifically, the roles of cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion molecules, surface-bound collagen, and the actin cytoskeletal network were investigated. Using time-lapse imaging, we analyzed the early stages of chondrocyte self-assembly. Within hours, chondrocytes rapidly coalesced into cell clusters before compacting to form tight cellular structures. Chondrocyte self-assembly was found to depend primarily on integrin function and secondarily on cadherin function. In addition, actin or myosin II inhibitors prevented chondrocyte self-assembly, suggesting that cell adhesion alone is not sufficient, but rather the active contractile actin cytoskeleton is essential for proper chondrocyte self-assembly and the formation of neocartilage. Better understanding of the self-assembly mechanisms allows for the rational modulation of this process toward generating neocartilages with improved properties. These findings are germane to understanding self-assembly, an emerging platform for tissue engineering of a plethora of tissues, especially as these neotissues are poised for translation.

Tissue engineering strives to create neotissues capable of restoring function. Scaffold-free technologies have emerged that can recapitulate native tissue function without the use of an exogenous scaffold. This review will survey, in particular, the self-assembling and self-organization processes as scaffold-free techniques. Characteristics and benefits of each process are described, and key examples of tissues created using these scaffold-free processes are examined to provide guidance for future tissue-engineering developments. We aim to explore the potential of self-assembly and self-organization scaffold-free approaches, detailing the recent progress in the in vitro tissue engineering of biomimetic tissues with these methods toward generating functional tissue replacements.