Collagen Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering

• Tissue grafts

Due to its good biocompatibility, bioactivity and degradability, collagen has been widely studied as a tissue graft. For example, it can be used as bone repair material, tendon repair material, vascular stent and so on.

• Self-assembled hydrogels

The fluidity of collagen hydrogels is primarily due to their high liquid phase, as well as their fast assembly time at physiological pH and temperature, making them ideal carriers for injectable systems and cellular and therapeutic/bioactive molecules.

• Freeze-dried sponges

To date, many molecules and cell populations have been used to further enhance the biological activity of collagen sponges, with encouraging results in both in vitro and in vivo environments.

• Self-assembled fibers

The self-assembled fibers, produced based on the principles of isoelectric focusing, have similar structure and mechanical properties to natural tissues. Even in the presence of myelin-associated glycoproteins known to inhibit neurite guidance, its anisotropic matrix has been shown to induce bidirectional growth of tendon-derived fibroblasts and bone marrow stromal cells, and to stimulate the tenogenic differentiation of bone marrow stem cells.

• Collagen films and tubes

• The isotropic collagen films prepared by evaporation have been widely used in the biomedicine of corneal repair due to its transparent nature and low demand for tissue mechanics.
• Collagen tubes are widely used in clinic as nerve guidance conduits, showing limited myofibroblast infiltration, guiding Schwann cell migration and axon regeneration to distal targets.

• Template-produced hollow spheres

Hollow collagen spheres can be prepared with sulfonated polystyrene beads as a template. Scaffolds, made from these hollow collagen spheres, have been used for gene, growth factor, and drug delivery or reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging.