Abstract
Osteochondral damage from trauma or osteoarthritis is a general joint disease that can lead to an increased social and economic burden in the modern society. The inefficiency of osteochondral defects is mainly due to the absence of suitable tissue-engineered substrates promoting tissue regeneration and replacing damaged areas. The hydrogels are becoming a promising kind of biomaterials for tissue regeneration. The biomimetic hydrogel microenvironment can be tightly controlled by modulating a number of biophysical and biochemical properties, including matrix mechanics, degradation, microstructure, cell adhesion, and intercellular interactions. In particular, advances in stem cell-laden hydrogels have offered new ideas for the cell therapy and osteochondral repair. Herein, the aim of this review is to underpin the importance of stem cell-laden hydrogels on promoting the development of osteochondral regeneration, especially in the field of manipulation of biomimetic microenvironment and utilization growth factors with various delivery methods.
Highlights
Osteochondral interface defects generally involve lesions in articular cartilage and subchondral cartilage
This paper reviews the latest progress in the design and preparation of stem cell-laden hydrogel for osteochondral tissue engineering applications in terms of engineering hydrogel properties, biomimetic microenvironment, and growth factor delivery
All authors reviewed and commented on the entire manuscript
Summary
Osteochondral interface defects generally involve lesions in articular cartilage and subchondral cartilage. Current treatment strategies for osteochondral defects mainly include the microfracture (bone marrow stimulation) (Dasar et al, 2016), auto-transplantation and allografts of osteochondral (VanTienderen et al, 2017), and autologous chondrocyte implantation (Beck et al, 2018). Tissue engineering methods offer appropriate biomaterials as artificial ECM to promote stem cell growth, proliferation and differentiation at defect sites, leaving the regeneration of articular cartilage to the involved natural biological processes that stem cells can interact with soluble factors. This review will focus on the importance and development of biomimetic microenvironment using the engineering cell-laden hydrogels on promotion of osteochondral tissue engineering and regeneration medicine fields, mainly including extracellular matrix, engineered matrix degradation, microarchitecture, cell-adhesive ligands, and cell-cell interactions. We provide some suggestions and prospects on developing stem cell-laden hydrogels via tailoring of their biomimetic microenvironment (e.g., physicochemical and mechanical properties) for effective osteochondral tissue engineering. Understanding medical needs and concurrently lessening the difficulty of hydrogel construction should be the goal for future research in regeneration medicine fields
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