BIOtech Research Center and Department of Industrial Engineering, European Institute of Excellence on Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University and King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Thai Red Cross Society, Bangkok, Thailand.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2018;1058:3-30. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-76711-6_1.
Materials selection is a critical aspect for the production of scaffolds for osteochondral tissue engineering. Synthetic materials are the result of man-made operations and have been investigated for a variety of tissue engineering applications. Instead, the products of physiological processes and the metabolic activity of living organisms are identified as natural materials. Over the recent decades, a number of natural materials, namely, biopolymers and bioceramics, have been proposed as the main constituent of osteochondral scaffolds, but also as cell carriers and signaling molecules. Overall, natural materials have been investigated both in the bone and in the cartilage compartment, sometimes alone, but often in combination with other biopolymers or synthetic materials. Biopolymers and bioceramics possess unique advantages over their synthetic counterparts due similarity with natural extracellular matrix, the presence of cell recognition sites and tunable chemistry. However, the characteristics of natural origin materials can vary considerably depending on the specific source and extraction process. A deeper understanding of the relationship between material variability and biological activity and the definition of standardized manufacturing procedures will be crucial for the future of natural materials in tissue engineering.
材料选择是骨软骨组织工程支架生产的关键环节。合成材料是人为操作的结果，已经被广泛应用于各种组织工程应用。相反，生理过程的产物和生物体的代谢活动被鉴定为天然材料。在最近几十年中，许多天然材料，即生物聚合物和生物陶瓷，已被提议作为骨软骨支架的主要成分，也作为细胞载体和信号分子。总的来说，天然材料已经在骨和软骨两个部分得到了研究，有时是单独研究，但通常是与其他生物聚合物或合成材料结合研究。生物聚合物和生物陶瓷具有独特的优势，因为它们与天然细胞外基质相似，具有细胞识别位点和可调节的化学性质。然而，天然来源材料的特性可能因特定来源和提取过程而异。更深入地了解材料可变性与生物活性之间的关系，并制定标准化的制造工艺，对于天然材料在组织工程中的未来发展至关重要。
