Abstract
Biopolymers are widely accepted natural materials in regenerative medicine, and further development of their bioactivities and discoveries on their composition/function relationships could greatly advance the field. However, a concise insight on commonly investigated biopolymers, their current applications and outlook of their modifications for multibioactivity are scarce. This review bridges this gap for professionals and especially freshmen in the field who are also interested in modification methods not yet in commercial use. A series of polymeric materials in research and development uses are presented as well as challenges that limit their efficacy in tissue regeneration are discussed. Finally, their roles in the regeneration of select tissues including the skin, bone, cartilage, and tendon are highlighted along with modifiable biopolymer moieties for different bioactivities.
Highlights
Regenerative medicine is a rapidly growing multidisciplinary field that applies biological, chemical and engineering principles to promote tissue regeneration
The goal of regenerative medicine is the repair, restoration or regeneration of lost or injured tissues using biomaterials, living cells and different signaling factors [1]. It has been reported in recent decades that regenerative medicine has significantly developed in terms of tissue repair and restoration including the cartilage [2,3,4], skin [5,6], bone [7,8,9,10,11,12] and blood vessels [13,14,15] using various biopolymeric materials
As the interaction between materials and the cells are important, appropriate signals generated by biopolymeric materials to guide cells towards desirable behaviors as required by different types of tissue restoration or regeneration inside the body is a leading focus in regenerative medicine
Summary
Regenerative medicine is a rapidly growing multidisciplinary field that applies biological, chemical and engineering principles to promote tissue regeneration. Scaffolds made of polymeric biomaterials should be able to enhance cell biomaterial interactions to achieve controllable cellular adhesion, proliferation, differentiation, and material degradation Among all these factors, tunable bioactivity of either natural, synthetic, or a combination of both polymer types plays an important role in tissue restoration and regeneration. It has been shown in previous studies that controllable cellular growth and attachment are highly dependent on polymeric materials’ density and porosity, which depends on polymers’ mechanical strengths and physical properties [29,30] To this end, tissue regeneration has been explored widely using a combination of natural and synthetic materials to create a porous and local bioactive environment upon implantation to regenerate damaged and injured tissues [31,32]. The chapter highlights several applications including skin, bone, cartilage, and tendon regeneration
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