Cell-Laden Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering

This article reviews cell-laden hydrogels focusing on their impact and recent trends in tissue engineering. Tissue engineering aims to develop functionalized tissues and organs for repair and regeneration of defective body parts with help of cells and engineered matrices called scaffold. Scaffold plays a key role in tissue engineering as a supporting system to accommodate cell attachment, proliferation, migration and differentiation into a specific tissue. Scaffolds in the form of hydrogels are widely used as a support system for engineering tissues owing to their functional properties such as biocompatibility, matching physical, mechanical and chemical properties to the native niche, providing microenvironment for cells to grow and infiltrate into three-dimensional (3D) space and for providing adequate nutrient and oxygen supplies. To optimize the scaffold properties and its compatibility with native niche, cell-laden hydrogel is an appealing option that helps engineering potential tissue constructs with biomimetic structure and function. In this article, therefore, we review cell-laden hydrogels and their applications in tissue engineering with special emphasis on different types of gel scaffolds and their functional properties. Recent trends in hydrogel-based scaffolding systems, especially stem cell-laden hydrogels, gradient hydrogels, and their potential in engineering cells and tissues are also discussed. The review is expected to be useful for readers to gain an in-sight on the cell-laden hydrogel as a promising scaffolding system for tissue engineering applications such as bone, cartilage, cardiac and neural.