Abstract
Muscular diseases such as muscular dystrophies and muscle injuries constitute a large group of ailments that manifest as muscle weakness, atrophy or fibrosis. Although cell therapy is a promising treatment option, the delivery and retention of cells in the muscle is difficult and prevents sustained regeneration needed for adequate functional improvements. Various types of biomaterials with different physical and chemical properties have been developed to improve the delivery of cells and/or growth factors for treating muscle injuries. Hydrogels are a family of materials with distinct advantages for use as cell delivery systems in muscle injuries and ailments, including their mild processing conditions, their similarities to natural tissue extracellular matrix, and their ability to be delivered with less invasive approaches. Moreover, hydrogels can be made to completely degrade in the body, leaving behind their biological payload in a process that can enhance the therapeutic process. For these reasons, hydrogels have shown great potential as cell delivery matrices. This paper reviews a few of the hydrogel systems currently being applied together with cell therapy and/or growth factor delivery to promote the therapeutic repair of muscle injuries and muscle wasting diseases such as muscular dystrophies.
Highlights
Skeletal muscle injuries and diseases constitute a common form of ailment in the human body
These cells were successfully engrafted into dystrophic muscle to produce human myofibres that stained positive for dystrophin
The most immediate benefit of these bioengineering technologies for treating inherited muscle diseases such as muscular dystrophy (MD) may lie in the forthcoming advancement of human in vitro assays designated for preclinical trials of a candidate drug, cell or therapeutic gene
Summary
Skeletal muscle injuries and diseases constitute a common form of ailment in the human body. There are still daunting hurdles to overcome in order to reach clinical efficacy for a much larger scale and for treating more prevalent forms of muscle injury or disease As of it seems that the most promising therapeutic application of muscle repair using cell therapy would involve localized rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org J. When it comes to muscle repair therapy, some basic principles should be followed when designing the hydrogel carrier, such as mimicking the skeletal muscle milieu, providing bioactive signalling for muscle differentiation, and designing the resorption of the material to coincide with the in vivo integration of new myofibres In view of their versatility, hydrogels constitute unique biomaterials widely applied in tissue engineering research and in many muscle disease and injury pathologies. Objective of this review is to highlight the most prevalently used hydrogels in the field of bioengineering approaches for muscle regeneration following traumatic injury or in the case of MD treatment
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