Current application of scaffold materials for nerve tissue engineering / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: It is a researching tendency for tissue engineering to develop compound, bionic, biological-active and intelligent materials, which are characterized by biological activity and can promote proliferation and differentiation of stem cells and tissue regeneration. OBJECTIVE: To summarize the application and development of scaffold materials for nerve tissue engineering. RETRIEVAL STRATEGY A computer-based online search was conducted in Pubmed and V6.32 database of VIP Information Resource System for English language publications containing the key words of "nerve tissue engineering, tissue engineering, neural, neural stem cells, Schwann cell, biomedical materials, scaffold" from January 2001 to June 2007. There were 123 literatures in total. Inclusion criteria ① articles about nerve repair with tissue engineering; ② current published literatures in the same field or in authoritative journals. Exclusion criteria duplicated researches. LITERATURE EVALUATION Articles are mainly derived from basic researches on scaffold materials for nerve tissue engineering, including resource, physical and chemical properties and compatibility with neural stem cells and Schwann cells. Among 36 involved literatures, there were 6 reviews, statement and lectures, and the other articles are basic researches. DATA SYNTHESIS: ① Up to now, there are no significantly researching breakthroughs about regeneration and repair after nerve injury in clinic. With the discovery of adult neural stem cells and the development of material and cell culture techniques, tissue engineering brings prospect for the treatment of nerve injury. ② Scaffold imitates the structure and function of extracellular matrix (ECM) and plays a key role in replacing extracellular matrix. It is a core for tissue engineering to look for seed cells with strong regeneration capacity and biological materials adapted to cell survival. ③ Researches demonstrate that the resource of scaffold materials for nerve tissue engineering is plentiful. Gelatine, collogen, polylactic acid hybrid materials, chitosan and acellular extracellular matrix are all considered as biocompatibility, security and stable physical and chemical characteristics. Therefore, they have a greatly applied prospect for tissue engineering. ④ There are still many difficulties of scaffold for nerve tissue engineering. It is important significance to optimise tissue construction technique and accelerate clinical application and industrial development of tissue engineering technique via further exploring basic problems, systemically elucidating formation and maturity of tissue engineering and investigating basic scientific problems and internal mechanism during prognosis in vivo. While, tissue engineering will certainly become a hot topic in the future. CONCLUSION: Researches on scaffold for nerve tissue engineering have obtained some achievements, but there are still many difficulties.