2025, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (28): 6094-6100

Application characteristics of thermosensitive hydrogels in bone tissue engineering

Liu Yang1, Yang Jilei2, Wang Wenli1, Cui Yingying1, Sun Qihao1, Li Yourui1   

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Thermoresponsive hydrogels are widely used in bone tissue engineering due to their structural similarity to extracellular matrix and their intelligent temperature sensitivity.
OBJECTIVE: To explain the mechanism of temperature-responsive hydrogels producing sol-gel phase transitions, classify them based on their sources, and summarize the applications of various temperature-responsive hydrogels in bone tissue engineering.
METHODS: The first author searched for relevant literature on CNKI and PubMed databases from 2000 to 2024, using search terms “hydrogel, thermosensitive hydrogel, bone repair, bone regeneration, bone tissue engineering” in Chinese and English. A total of 70 eligible articles were finally selected for review.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The temperature-sensitive mechanism of thermosensitive hydrogels can be divided into negative sensitive and positive sensitive according to different reactions. Its composition is mainly divided into natural polymer and synthetic polymer. Current research has found that in addition to the traditional way of using temperature-sensitive hydrogels as scaffold materials for bone tissue engineering, 3D printed scaffolds are also gradually emerging. In addition, thermosensitive hydrogels can also be used in 3D cell culture and drug slow release due to their own characteristics. At present, the development of thermosensitive hydrogels is not perfect enough. There are still problems such as the inability to accurately control the phase transition temperature, sustained release rate, low mechanical strength, and low biodegradability. Therefore, developing thermosensitive hydrogels with more stable properties is still a problem that we should solve at present.

Key words: thermosensitive hydrogel, bone tissue engineering, bone regeneration, scaffold, cell culture, drug delivery