Biomaterials in meniscus tissue engineering

Abstract

Meniscus is a complex tissue that plays important roles on the knee performance and homeostasis. The meniscus tissue is very susceptible to injury and despite the great advances in meniscus regeneration area, none of the current strategies for the treatment of meniscus lesions are completely effective. To overcome such great challenge, tissue engineering-based strategies have been attempted. One of the main targets in this research area is to find out a biomaterial or formulations that are able to mimic as much as possible the meniscus native extracellular matrix. In the last few years the characteristics and behaviors of different biomaterials were explored and several processing routes attempted to obtain an adequate architecture for proper cells adhesion, ingrowths, proliferation and differentiation. Herein, a panoply of biomaterials that have been used in meniscus tissue engineering strategies are overviewed.