Abstract
Smart or stimuli-responsive materials are an emerging class of materials used for tissue engineering and drug delivery. A variety of stimuli (including temperature, pH, redox-state, light, and magnet fields) are being investigated for their potential to change a material’s properties, interactions, structure, and/or dimensions. The specificity of stimuli response, and ability to respond to endogenous cues inherently present in living systems provide possibilities to develop novel tissue engineering and drug delivery strategies (for example materials composed of stimuli responsive polymers that self-assemble or undergo phase transitions or morphology transformations). Herein, smart materials as controlled drug release vehicles for tissue engineering are described, highlighting their potential for the delivery of precise quantities of drugs at specific locations and times promoting the controlled repair or remodeling of tissues.
Highlights
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defined regenerative medicine as the capacity to facilitate regeneration of parts of the human body, where cells and tissues can be engineered to grow healthy, functional organs to replace diseased ones; new genes can be introduced into the body to combat disease; and adult stem cells can generate replacements for cells that are lost due to injury or disease; tissue engineering and regenerative medicine aim to replace/regenerate tissues from cells and biomaterials [1]
Thermoresponsive materials can be classified according to their response to temperature changes: polymers that become insoluble above a critical temperature called lower critical solution temperature (LCST) and polymers that become insoluble below a critical temperature called upper critical solution temperature (UCST) [77]
The increase in HAMA concentration correlates well with increase in the material stiffness. These results suggest an optimal hydrogel composition of 19.5% pHPMA-lac-polyethylene glycol (PEG) with 0.5% HAMA
Summary
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defined regenerative medicine as the capacity to facilitate regeneration of parts of the human body, where cells and tissues can be engineered to grow healthy, functional organs to replace diseased ones; new genes can be introduced into the body to combat disease; and adult stem cells can generate replacements for cells that are lost due to injury or disease; tissue engineering and regenerative medicine aim to replace/regenerate tissues from cells and biomaterials [1]. The authors observed in their microstructure analysis that a higher gelator concentration and a stronger hydrogen bonding between guanosine and cytosine units resulted in the formation of gels with smaller pore diameters They studied their pH-sensitivity and observed that all three types of hydrogels can be formed only at pH 6–8; logically, the hydrogels with lower concentrations degraded faster than the hydrogels of the higher concentration, all the hydrogels had good stability at physiological conditions showing their potential for use in the future as drug carriers or tissue engineering materials [66]. Hydrogels based on cytosine (C) and guanosine (G) modified hyaluronic acid (HA) via hydrogen bonding, with 1,6-hexamethylenediamine (HMDA)
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