Cell-laden hydrogels for osteochondral and cartilage tissue engineering

Abstract

Despite tremendous advances in the field of regenerative medicine, it still remains challenging to repair the osteochondral interface and full-thickness articular cartilage defects. This inefficiency largely originates from the lack of appropriate tissue engineered artificial matrices that can replace the damaged regions and promote tissue regeneration. Hydrogels are emerging as a promising class of biomaterials for both soft and hard tissue regeneration. Many critical properties of hydrogels, such as mechanical stiffness, elasticity, water content, bioactivity, and degradation, can be rationally designed and conveniently tuned by proper selection of the material and chemistry. Particularly, advances in the development of cell-laden hydrogels have opened up new possibilities for cell therapy. In this article, we describe the problems encountered in this field and review recent progress in designing cell-hydrogel hybrid constructs for promoting the reestablishment of osteochondral/cartilage tissues. Our focus centers on the effects of hydrogel type, cell type, and growth factor delivery on achieving efficient chondrogenesis and osteogenesis. We give our perspective on developing next-generation matrices with improved physical and biological properties for osteochondral/cartilage tissue engineering. We also highlight recent advances in biomanufacturing technologies (e.g. molding, bioprinting, and assembly) for fabrication of hydrogel-based osteochondral and cartilage constructs with complex compositions and microarchitectures to mimic their native counterparts.

Effect of culture duration on chondrogenic preconditioning of equine bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells in self‐assembling peptide hydrogel

“…These data were used to select preconditioning durations for subsequent testing of ECM synthesis in the absence of TGFβ. Preconditioned MSCs were evaluated for commitment to chondrogenesis encapsulated in agarose, a hydrogel scaffold that has been commonly‐used to study the biology of chondrogenic MSCs and chondrocytes . Negative and positive controls were created by seeding MSCs from undifferentiated expansion culture into agarose, and culturing in the absence or presence of TGFβ, respectively.…”

The effects of dynamic compressive loading on human mesenchymal stem cell osteogenesis in the stiff layer of a bilayer hydrogel

“…Tissue engineering that delivers autologous mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is one strategy that holds promise for regenerating osteochondral tissues (Yang, Zhang, Yue, & Khademhosseini, ). In particular, bilayer hydrogels have emerged as a promising platform for osteochondral tissue engineering due to their high water content, tunable biochemical cues and stiffness in each layer, and in situ forming capabilities to deliver cells minimally invasively.…”

Mimetic Hierarchical Approaches for Osteochondral Tissue Engineering

“…Nanoparticles can be added as well, and loaded with chondrogenic/osteogenic growth factors [65]. In fact, hydrogels with cells and growth factors are proving very useful in engineering OC interface and achieving biochemical gradients [62].…”

“…Importantly, cell-laden hydrogels, or cell-hydrogel hybrid constructs, can be manufactured in patient-specific anatomical shapes [62]. Injectable hydrogels are particularly convenient materials for in vivo applications.…”