Engineering Musculoskeletal Tissue Interfaces

Abstract

Tissue engineering aims to bring together biomaterials, cells, and signaling molecules within properly designed microenvironments in order to create viable treatment options for the lost or malfunctioning tissues. Design and production of scaffolds and cell-laden grafts that mimic the complex structural and functional features of tissues are among the most important elements of tissue engineering strategy. Although all tissues have their own complex structure, an even more complex case in terms of engineering a proper carrier material is encountered at the tissue interfaces, where two distinct tissues come together. The interfaces in the body can be examined in four categories; cartilage-bone and ligament-bone interfaces at the knee and the spine, tendon-bone interfaces at the shoulder and the feet, and muscle-tendon interface at the skeletal system. These interfaces are seen mainly at the soft-to-hard tissue transitions and they are especially susceptible to injury and tear due to the biomechanical inconsistency between these tissues where high strain fields are present. Therefore, engineering the musculoskeletal tissue interfaces remain a challenge. This review focuses on recent advancements in strategies for musculoskeletal interface engineering using different biomaterial-based platforms and surface modification techniques.

Tough and tunable scaffold-hydrogel composite biomaterial for soft-to-hard musculoskeletal tissue interfaces

“…These specialized transitional zones transmit loads and minimize strain concentrations that would otherwise form at the junction between soft tissues (e.g., tendon, ligament, and cartilage) and bone. Musculoskeletal interfaces are especially susceptible to injury due to high strain that can form at the junction between two biomechanically disparate tissues under physiological loads ( 29 ). Conventional surgical solutions for tendon-to-bone insertion repair often fail at the bony insertion site due to insufficient tissue integration, underscoring the importance of an integrating interface in maintaining efficacy and function ( 30 ).…”

Robust phenotypic maintenance of limb cells during heterogeneous culture in a physiologically relevant polymeric-based constructed graft system

“…In contrast, when the same cell phenotypes were co-cultured in a 3D construct with cell-relevant microstructures, the physiological functions and phenotypic characteristics of both cell phenotypes were well maintained 10 . This has also been evident in many further studies where providing biomimetic structural cues relevant to each cell population along the construct resulted in spatial control over the different cells' phenotype, thereby, regulating their relative gene and protein expressions in a region-specific manner, and promoting the regeneration of their respective tissues simultaneously in vivo [11][12][13][14] . These observations have led to the notion that the dimension in which cells are cultured in is a crucial fate determinant during a heterogenous culture, and to the vague impression that culturing cells in monolayer drives abnormal cell function or trans-differentiation, whereas 3D culture elicits a more physiological state.…”

A Deep Belief network and Least Squares Support Vector Machine Method for Quantitative Evaluation of Defects in Titanium Sheet Using Eddy Current Scan Image

“…For decades, Ti was mainly used in the aerospace and defense industries (Malwina, 2016). Later, as its production increased, it was also gradually applied to other fields, such as the chemical and medical industries, and ocean and civil engineering (Gurrappa, 2003;Veiga et al, 2012;Bayrak and Yilgor Huri, 2018). In civil engineering, Ti sheets can be safely connected with ceramics, glass, and concrete because all of these materials have similar thermal expansion coefficients (Winowiecka and Adamus, 2016).…”