Recent Development of Conductive Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering: Review and Perspective

Abstract

In recent years, tissue engineering techniques have been rapidly developed and offer a new therapeutic approach to organ or tissue damage repair. However, most of tissue engineering scaffolds are nonconductive and cannot establish effective electrical coupling with tissue for the electroactive tissues. Electroconductive hydrogels (ECHs) have received increasing attention in tissue engineering owing to their electroconductivity, biocompatibility, and high water content. In vitro, ECHs can not only promote the communication of electrical signals between cells, but also mediate the adhesion, proliferation, migration, and differentiation of different kinds of cells. In vivo, ECHs can transmit the electric signal to electroactive tissues and activate bioelectrical signaling pathways to promote tissue repair. As a result, implanting ECHs into damaged tissues can effectively reconstruct physiological functions related to electrical conduction. In this review, an overview about the classifications and the fabrication methods of ECHs is first presented. And then, the applications of ECHs in tissue engineering, including cardiac, nerve, skin, and skeletal muscle tissue, are highlighted. At last, some rational guidelines for designing ECHs toward clinical applications are provided.

Emerging 4D fabrication of next-generation nerve guiding conduits: a critical perspective

“…For instance, silk fibroin (SF) based composite NGCs were made by braiding SF and magnesium filaments into an inner layer and freeze-dried with SF and chitosan solution, which endowed them with sufficient compression stability during early stages of nerve regeneration and functional recovery. 40 It is well known that electrical stimulus is impor-tant for programming neuron-related cells, 41,42 which promotes neurite sprouting and Schwann cell migration across the injured site. Conductive polymers such as polyaniline (PANI), polypyrrole (PPy), polythiophene (PTh), and poly(3,4ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) have been blended with biopolymers to render the final NGC conductive.…”

Integration of hydrogels in microfabrication processes for bioelectronic medicine: Progress and outlook

“…Another option is to use conductive polymers such as PPy, PEDOT, PANi. The aromatic groups in the polymeric chains contain π-conjugations (alternating single and double covalent bonds) with free electrons, conferring electronic conductivity (10 -3 -10 5 S/cm) (Nezakati et al, 2018;Gao et al, 2022).…”

Development of Electro‐Conductive Composite Bioinks for Electrohydrodynamic Bioprinting with Microscale Resolution

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