Abstract
Severe bone damage from diseases, including extensive trauma, fractures, and bone tumors, cannot self-heal, while traditional surgical treatment may bring side effects such as infection, inflammation, and pain. As a new biomaterial with controllable mechanical properties and biocompatibility, hydrogel is widely used in bone tissue engineering (BTE) as a scaffold for growth factor transport and cell adhesion. In order to make hydrogel more suitable for the local treatment of bone diseases, hydrogel preparation methods should be combined with synthetic materials with excellent properties and advanced technologies in different fields to better control drug release in time and orientation. It is necessary to establish a complete method to evaluate the hydrogel’s properties and biocompatibility with the human body. Moreover, establishment of standard animal models of bone defects helps in studying the therapeutic effect of hydrogels on bone repair, as well as to evaluate the safety and suitability of hydrogels. Thus, this review aims to systematically summarize current studies of hydrogels in BTE, including the mechanisms for promoting bone synthesis, design, and preparation; characterization and evaluation methods; as well as to explore future applications of hydrogels in BTE.
Highlights
Bone is the second largest transplant tissue in the world
The combination of the CHPOA/hydrogel system with the growth factors FGF18 and BMP2 might be a step towards efficient bone tissue engineering
Many natural and non-biological materials used in preparing hydrogels are commonly used as bone graft substitutes for osteoconduction, which have the advantages of adjustable properties, good biocompatibility, and nonimmune response
Summary
Bone is the second largest transplant tissue in the world. More than two million bone transplants are performed every year worldwide, while there is no satisfactory bone transplantation solution at present [1]. Integrin is a heterodimeric receptor in the cell membrane, which acts as a linker between cells and substrates by binding to adhesion proteins on the surface of biological materials [18] It is the key determinant of the subsequent cell activity including cell morphology, migration, proliferation, and differentiation. The combination of the CHPOA/hydrogel system with the growth factors FGF18 and BMP2 might be a step towards efficient bone tissue engineering. This hybrid growth factor delivery system may be clinically useful for bone regeneration in the case of fracture non-unions and large bone defects. To promote hASCs differentiation towards the osteoblastic phenotype, and to elicit the formation of bone-like structures in an ectopic site in vivo
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