The success of biomaterial-based tissue engineering strategies for peripheral nerve regeneration

Abstract

Peripheral nerve injury is a clinically common injury that causes sensory dysfunction and locomotor system degeneration, which seriously affects the quality of the patients’ daily life. Long gapped defects in large nerve are difficult to repair via surgery and limited donor source of autologous nerve greatly challenges the successful nerve repair by transplantation. Significantly, remarkable progress has been made in repairing the peripheral nerve injury using artificial nerve grafts and a variety of products for peripheral nerve repair have emerged been approved globally in recent years. The raw materials of these commercial products includes natural/synthetic polymers, extracellular matrix. Despite a lot of effort, the desirable functional recovery still remains great challenges in long gapped nerve defects. Thus this review discusses the recent development of tissue engineering products for peripheral nerve repair and the design of bionic grafts improving the local microenvironment for accelerating nerve regeneration against locomotor disorder, which may provide potential strategies for the repair of long gaps or thick nerve defects by multifunctional biomaterials.

Harnessing three-dimensional porous chitosan microsphere embedded with adipose-derived stem cells to promote nerve regeneration

“…Since 1967, when the Dutch scholar Van Wezel developed the first microcarrier using DEAE-Sephadex A 50, the application of microcarriers began to develop rapidly at home and abroad, and microcarriers of various materials have been emerging [41,42]. In the field of nerve repair, the materials used to prepare microcarriers include chitosan, collagen, fibrin, hyaluronic acid, alginate, and polyethylene glycol [43][44][45][46]. Among them, chitosan, widely found in nature and extracted from insects' shells, is the product of chitin-N-deacetylation.…”

An experimental and numerical study of the microstructural and biomechanical properties of human peripheral nerve endoneurium for the design of tissue scaffolds

“…ANA’s materials are mainly from cadavers, which limits its widespread application ( Jiang et al, 2022 ). When ANA is used to repair long or large nerve defects, neural cell necrosis may occur due to insufficient early vascularization, especially when the graft is too thick and revascularization does not reach the center of the graft ( Ray and Mackinnon, 2010 ).…”

Chitosan/PLGA-based tissue engineered nerve grafts with SKP-SC-EVs enhance sciatic nerve regeneration in dogs through miR-30b-5p-mediated regulation of axon growth

“…Peripheral nerve regeneration and functional recovery are still major clinical challenges [ 1 ]. The repair of peripheral nerve injury (PNI), especially in cases involving long-distance nerve defects, usually requires surgical nerve grafting, among which autografting, accepted as the gold standard, is unfortunately limited by several drawbacks, such as graft availability, donor site morbidity, neuroma formation and additional surgical incisions.…”