Prospect of tissue-engineered tendons in clinical applications：how to improve mechanical properties, tissue integration and late-stage degradation / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:Tissue-engineered tendons have been used to repair the damaged tendon tissue. Use of tissue-engineered tendons for repair of tendon injury has become a hot spot in this research field. OBJECTIVE: To elaborate the types, advantages and disadvantages of seed cels, the design method, advantages and disadvantages of scaffold materials, and the factors that induced the formation of tendon, so as to promote the optimization of each joint, al of which benefit for mature construction of tissue-engineered tendons. METHODS: The related reviews and paper reports of tendon tissue engineering published from January 2000 to January 2015 were retrieved from Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), China Knowledge Resources Database (CNKI) series database, Chinese Citation Database and PubMed database. The key words were “tissue engineering; tendon; tendon defect”. The research progress of seed cels, scaffold material and induction factors were analyzed. RESULTS AND COMCLUSIONThe recent research of tissue-engineered tendons for repair of tendon injury has been summarized. Seed cels, scaffold, induction factors were discussed. Tendon stem cels, as a kind of seed cels, are currently the first choice in the process of tissue engineering tendon research, because tendon stem cels have the homology of the homogenous or autologous tendons and possess strong differentiation and proliferation capacities. However, there have been no systematic schemes regarding acquisition and proliferation and culture of tendon stem cels. The currently designed tissue-engineered tendons cannot meet the clinical requirements because of poor mechanical properties of tendon tissue, poor integration with the host tissue, being susceptible to degradation in late period and functional disuse. Induction factors are the laft key factors for tissue-engineered tendons for repair of tendon injury. The selection and use of induction factors are prerequisites for the regulation of tendon tissue development. But the categories of induction factors and the association and interrelationship between induction factors have not been fuly clear and studies are needed to further investigate these uncertainties.