Abstract
Disease, trauma, and aging account for a significant number of clinical disorders. Regenerative medicine is emerging as a very promising therapeutic option. The design and development of new cell-customised biomaterials able to mimic extracellular matrix (ECM) functionalities represents one of the major strategies to control the cell fate and stimulate tissue regeneration. Recently, hydrogels have received a considerable interest for their use in the modulation and control of cell fate during the regeneration processes. Several synthetic bioresponsive hydrogels are being developed in order to facilitate cell-matrix and cell-cell interactions. In this review, new strategies and future perspectives of such synthetic cell microenvironments will be highlighted.
Highlights
Bioresponsive hydrogels are dynamic systems that are capable of responding to or stimulating specific signals through the natural biological processes [1]
Thanks to their structural roleby inadipic nature, protein-based hydrogels gained great interest obtained by chemical cross-linking hydrazide or poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) using carbodiimide chemistry for tissue engineering [16]
Hydrogels made up of naturally derived components, for example extracellular matrix proteins and polysaccharides like GAGs, have received particular attention in different applications in the field of regenerative medicine [5], since they supply physico-chemical and biochemical features that are similar to the native cellular milieu
Summary
Bioresponsive hydrogels are dynamic systems that are capable of responding to or stimulating specific signals through the natural biological processes [1]. Bioresponsive hydrogels are considered “smart” biomaterials and are attracting great interest thanks to their controllable physical and biochemical properties when exposed to specific conditions in our body such as temperature, pH, or enzymes and receptors [3]. These general features may result in hydrogel responses (i.e., in term of swelling, degradation, mechanical deformation) [4] and/or in cells and tissue responses. We will focus on a brief overview of the strategies employed to obtain bioresponsive hydrogel through functionalization with bioactive molecules
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