Abstract

Many different types of scaffold materials have been used for tissue engineering applications, and hydrogels form one group of materials that have been used in a wide variety of applications.

Hydrogels are hydrophilic polymer networks and they represent an important class of biomaterials in biotechnology and medicine because many hydrogels exhibit excellent biocompatibility with minimal inflammatory responses and tissue damage. Many studies have demonstrated the use of hydrogels in bone-tissue engineering applications. In this report, the summary was conducted on various kinds of polymers and different modification methods of hydrogels to enhance bone formation. The results revealed that hydrogels are applied for bone regeneration and that the modification of hydrogels with bioactive molecules or cell-based approaches resulted in significant increases in new bone formation. This suggests that the use of hydrogels with modification may offer an option for bone-tissue engineering, and further research is needed to identify the biological and physical properties of hydrogels.

Introduction

Many different types of scaffold materials have been used for tissue engineering applications, and hydrogels form one group of materials that have been used in a wide variety of applications (1). A gel is defined as a three-dimensional network swollen by a solvent, and hydrogels are hydrophilic polymer networks that may absorb from 10-20%, up to thousands of times their dry weight in water, and this property allows the cells to adhere, proliferate, and differentiate onto the hydrogels (2).

Hydrogels represent an important class of biomaterials in biotechnology and medicine because many of them exhibit excellent biocompatibility with minimal inflammatory responses and tissue damage, and thus many studies on bone-tissue engineering applications have been undertaken (3-6). In this report, the summary was conducted on various kinds of polymers and different modification methods of hydrogels in bone regeneration applications.