Abstract
Tissue repair after trauma and infection has always been a difficult problem in regenerative medicine. Hydrogels have become one of the most important scaffolds for tissue engineering due to their biocompatibility, biodegradability and water solubility. Especially, the stiffness of hydrogels is a key factor, which influence the morphology of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and their differentiation. The researches on this point are meaningful to the field of tissue engineering. Herein, this review focus on the design of hydrogels with different stiffness and their effects on the behavior of MSCs. In addition, the effect of hydrogel stiffness on the phenotype of macrophages is introduced, and then the relationship between the phenotype changes of macrophages on inflammatory response and tissue repair is discussed. Finally, the future application of hydrogels with a certain stiffness in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering has been prospected.
Highlights
Trauma, infection, tumor, and other diseases can cause tissue damage and have an adverse impact on physiological function (Wang et al, 2018; Esser-von Bieren, 2019)
The results showed that the hydrogel with high stiffness was more conducive to osteogenic differentiation than the hydrogel with low stiffness, and it was observed that the hydrogel with low stiffness had strong adipogenic differentiation ability
Hydrogels with different stiffness are promising materials in biomedicine and their stiffness will change the behavior of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs)
Summary
Infection, tumor, and other diseases can cause tissue damage and have an adverse impact on physiological function (Wang et al, 2018; Esser-von Bieren, 2019). Some hydrogel-based composite platforms can change the phenotype of macrophages by increasing the hydrogel stiffness, transforming them from anti-inflammatory M2 type to pro-inflammatory M1 type, and promoting tissue repair by regulating related inflammatory reactions and immune processes (Meli et al, 2020; Yuan et al, 2021). It can affect the reproductive differentiation or phenotype of cells by changing the related biophysical properties of hydrogels and affecting the expression of related cytokines or protein secretion groups.
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