Abstract

Osteoarthritis has been a common disease among elderly people, but there is not a solution clinically efficient for osteoarthritis. Therefore, tissue engineering has been developed in the field of cartilage regeneration. Tissue engineering has three basic elements: cell, scaffold and growth factor. An injectable scaffold, which can form a gel with original liquid form at the site of defect by injection, is an emerging scaffold for cartilage engineering. A scaffold can be composed of many materials such as natural materials, synthetic materials, composite materials, as well as hybrid materials. This paper reviews natural materials for cartilage regeneration.