2022, Vol. 26 ›› Issue (34): 5518-5524

Advantages and application strategies of hyaluronic acid scaffold in cartilage repair engineering

Liu Hui, Liu Aifeng, Zhang Yu, Zhang Chao   

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Due to its easy modification characteristics, how to use various modification methods to obtain a scaffold that meets the requirements of tissue engineering cartilage repair has become the focus of current research.
OBJECTIVE: To review characteristics of hyaluronic acid cartilage repair scaffolds modified by various modification methods and their advantages and applications in cartilage tissue engineering.
METHODS: A computer search of the articles concerning hyaluronic acid cartilage repair scaffolds on CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, and PubMed databases was conducted from January 2011 to March 2021. The “hyaluronic acid, cartilage, scaffold, tissue engineering” in Chinese and English were used as search terms. Finally, 72 articles were included for analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: (1) The modifiability of hyaluronic acid provides an important application strategy for efficient and high-quality cartilage repair. At present, many related researches have achieved remarkable results. Carboxyl modified hyaluronic acid scaffolds can improve the survival rate and metabolic activity of seed cells, and have good biocompatibility. Hydroxy modified hyaluronic acid scaffold has good mechanical properties and biodegradability. The acetamino modification of hyaluronic acid was not used for cartilage repair because of the toxicity of the deacetylation reagent. The grafted hyaluronic acid scaffold can repair cartilage and subchondral bone, and up regulate cartilage gene expression. The composite modified hyaluronic acid scaffold has excellent spatial structure, which can regulate the directional differentiation of seed cells and inhibit hypertrophy, and it is a multifunctional scaffold. (2) However, hyaluronic acid based scaffolds still face some objective problems and different challenges in cartilage repair, for example, hyaluronic acid based scaffolds cannot completely regenerate hyaluronic cartilage at present. Most of the researches are in the animal experimental stage, and the number of clinical researches is quite limited. (3) In recent years, the design strategy of cartilage tissue engineering scaffolds has changed to the direction of annexing cartilage and subchondral bone repair. The multifunctional scaffold based on hyaluronic acid will be the key to achieve high-quality cartilage repair in the future.
Key words: hyaluronic acid, scaffolds, functional group, modification, cartilage repair, tissue engineering, application strategy, review