Cell encapsulation using biopolymer gels for regenerative medicine

Abstract

To cite this version:Nicola C. Hunt, Liam M. Grover. Cell encapsulation using biopolymer gels for regenerative medicine. Biotechnology Letters, Springer Verlag, 2010, 32 (6), pp.733-742. <10.1007/s10529-010-0221-0>. <hal-00565436> Abstract There has been a consistent increase in the mean life expectancy of the population of the developed world over the past century. Healthy life expectancy, however, has not increased concurrently. As a result we are living a larger proportion of our lives in poor health and there is a growing demand for the replacement of diseased and damaged tissues. While traditionally tissue grafts have functioned well for this purpose, the demand for tissue grafts now exceeds the supply. For this reason, research in regenerative medicine is rapidly expanding to cope with this new demand. There is now a trend towards supplying cells with a material in order to expedite the tissue healing process. Hydrogel encapsulation provides cells with a three dimensional environment similar to that experienced in vivo and therefore may allow the maintenance of normal cellular function in order to produce tissues similar to those found in the body. In this review we discuss biopolymeric gels that have been used for the encapsulation of mammalian cells for tissue engineering applications as well as a brief overview of cell encapsulation for therapeutic protein production. This review focuses on agarose, alginate, collagen, fibrin, hyaluronic acid and gelatin since they are widely used for cell encapsulation. The literature on the regeneration of cartilage, bone, ligament, tendon, skin, blood vessels and neural tissues using these materials has been summarised.

The past, present and future in scaffold-based tendon treatments

“…The attractiveness of collagen type I is based on the fact that constitutes the major component of tendon and is removed from the body through physiological enzymatic processes, as a function of the extent of cross-linking and functionalisation [105,[124][125][126][127]. Clinically, injectable collagen hydrogels have been utilised as carriers for biological and pharmaceutical agents [128]. Collagen peptides have also been used, with preclinical data demonstrating increased collagen synthesis [129], maintenance of homeostasis [130] and improved healing, as judged by mean average diameter, distribution of fibrils and GAG composition [131].…”

Combination of bone morphogenetic protein-2 plasmid DNA with chemokine CXCL12 creates an additive effect on bone formation onset and volume

“…We developed an efficient gene delivery system based on the anionic polysaccharide alginate, which is compatible with simultaneous cell seeding and shows very high transfection efficiencies and effectively induces bone formation when supplemented with BMP-2 plasmid DNA (Wegman et al, 2011(Wegman et al, , 2013Loozen et al, 2015). Combined with other hydrogels, or in the form of nanoparticles, alginate has previously been used to deliver plasmid DNA (Jain and Amiji, 2012;Krebs et al, 2009;Park et al, 2007), and was successfully applied in bone tissue engineering applications both in vitro and in vivo (Hunt and Grover, 2010;Stevens et al, 2005).…”

Reinforcement of hydrogels using three-dimensionally printed microfibres

“…In this respect, hydrogels are designed to provide the cells with a fully hydrated three-dimensional (3D) environment comparable to the extracellular matrix of native tissues 3,4 . When embedded within hydrogels, cells need to form a tissue-specific matrix that is capable of repairing or regenerating the damaged tissue.…”