The Application of Hydrogels Based on Natural Polymers for Tissue Engineering

Abstract

: Hydrogels are known as polymer-based networks with the ability to absorb water and other body fluids. Because of this, the hydrogels are used to preserve drugs, proteins, nutrients or cells. Hydrogels possess great biocompatibility, and properties like soft tissue, and networks full of water, which allows oxygen, nutrients, and metabolites to pass. Therefore, hydrogels are extensively employed as scaffolds in tissue engineering. Specifically, hydrogels made of natural polymers are efficient structures for tissue regeneration, because they mimic natural environment which improves the expression of cellular behavior. : Producing natural polymer-based hydrogels from collagen, hyaluronic acid (HA), fibrin, alginate, and chitosan is a significant tactic for tissue engineering because it is useful to recognize the interaction between scaffold with a tissue or cell, their cellular reactions, and potential for tissue regeneration. The present review article is focused on injectable hydrogels scaffolds made of biocompatible natural polymers with particular features, the methods that can be employed to engineer injectable hydrogels and their latest applications in tissue regeneration.

Biomimetic hydrogels designed for cartilage tissue engineering

“…Biomimetic hydrogels might mimic cartilage ECM composition and/or organisation to achieve similar biological and mechanical properties of the native tissue. For instance, natural materials such as CS and gelatin are non-toxic with tuneable biodegradability, however, they have poor mechanical properties, which limits their use for tissue engineering 104 . For this reason, the combination of natural materials with synthetic materials is used for achieving improved overall hydrogels' biological and mechanical properties.…”

Alginate Hydrogels as Scaffolds and Delivery Systems to Repair the Damaged Spinal Cord

“…Both synthetic and natural materials have demonstrated their usefulness to reconstruct and replace the great majority of damaged tissues. [6,7,37] To do so, preformed materials should fulfill a series of requirements to be considered as optimal im- plants for promoting SC repair and neural tissue engineering. These include their lack of toxicity and immunogenicity, thus contributing to high biocompatibility.…”

“…The rapid development and extensive research sustained by polymer science have facilitated the appropriate design and preparation of a large number of scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. Both synthetic and natural materials have demonstrated their usefulness to reconstruct and replace the great majority of damaged tissues . To do so, preformed materials should fulfill a series of requirements to be considered as optimal implants for promoting SC repair and neural tissue engineering.…”

An overview of various treatment strategies, especially tissue engineering for damaged articular cartilage

“…Besides, sometimes, scaffold-free engineered products are used to avoid the side effects of the products resulting from the destruction of scaffolds [18,19]. Different natural or synthetic materials [20][21][22][23], various types of cells, including stem cells and primary cells [24,25], biochemical factors, including bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), Transforming growth factor-b (TGFb) [26,27], fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) [28,29], insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) [30], SRY (sex determining region Y)-box (SOX) [31,32], Cartilage-Derived Morphogenetic Protein I and II (CDMP I and II) [33,34], and biomechanical stimuli, including shear, compressive and tensile stresses [35,36] have been investigated for the cartilage tissue engineering.…”