Mechanobiology of bone healing and regeneration: in vivo models

Mechanical boundary conditions are well known to influence the regeneration of bone and mechanobiology is the study of how mechanical or physical stimuli regulate biological processes. In vivo models have been applied over many years to investigate the effects of mechanics on bone healing. Early models have focused on the influence of mechanical stability on healing outcome, with an interest in parameters such as the magnitude of interfragmentary movement, the rate and timing of application of micromotion and the number of loading cycles. As measurement techniques have been refined, there has been a shift in orders of magnitude from investigations targeted at the organ level to those targeted at the tissue level and beyond. An understanding of how mechanics influences tissue differentiation during repair and regeneration crucially requires spatial and temporal knowledge of both the local mechanical environment in the healing tissue and a characterization of the tissues formed over the course of regeneration. Owing to limitations in the techniques available to measure the local mechanical conditions during repair directly, simulation approaches, such as the finite element method, are an integral part of the mechanobiologist's toolkit, while histology remains the gold standard in the characterization of the tissue formed. However, with rapid advances occurring in imaging modalities and methods to characterize tissue properties, new opportunities exist to better understand the role of mechanics in the biology of bone regeneration. Combined with developments in molecular biology, mechanobiology has the potential to offer exciting, new regenerative treatments for bone healing.