ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Hyaluronic acid is an important component of extracellular matrix, has good biocompatibility, unique rheological properties and a variety of physiological functions. Therefore, it has wide application prospect in the tissue engineering. OBJECTIVE: To review the latest research progress in hyaluronic acid scaffold materials in different directions of tissue engineering. METHODS: Using the keywords of "hyaluronic acid, tissue engineering, regeneration, scaffold" in English and Chinese, we retrieved relevant articles published from January 2013 to September 2016 in the databases of PubMed, ScienceDirect and CNKI. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The application of hyaluronic acid tissue engineering scaffold materials mainly focuses on the regeneration of bone, cartilage, cardiovascular and nerve. The researchers optimize the composition, ratio of different materials, and modification or cross-linking methods to obtain the ideal scaffold materials to match the mechanical properties and physiological activity of the target tissue. However, there are not enough data on the influence of the molecular weight of hyaluronic acid and the original source of other raw materials on the scaffold properties. Further investigations are needed on the clinical transformation of hyaluronic acid tissue engineering products.