Tissue engineering techniques for repairing articular cartilage defects: Theoretical research and advances / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

Due to the poor repair and regeneration capacity of articular cartilage, traditional treatment cannot get satisfactory curative effect on it. However, tissue engineering provides a new way for repairing articular cartilage defects. Present research focus has come down to the following issues: the stability of cell characters and phenotypes during mass amplification of seed cells, the control of directional differentiation, the combination of multi-scaffold materials, the synergistic effect of multi-growth factors, the gene transfer technology for maintaining the expression of growth factors, etc. This article reviews the advances in seed cells, scaffold materials, growth factors of articular cartilage tissue engineering, pointing out their advantages and disadvantages as well as the research direction in the future.