TABLE 3.

Studies related to tissue engineering of UCMSCs for IVD regeneration.

References	Scaffolds	Results
Leckie et al. (2013)	Fibrin hydrogel	UCMSCs combined with hydrogels were superior to UCMSCs alone and hydrogels alone in terms of imaging performance, biomechanics, cell number and ECM content
Reppel et al. (2015)	Alginate/hyaluronic acid hydrogel	WJ-MSCs exhibited greater type II collagen synthesis than BM-MSCs at the transcript and protein levels
Ahn et al. (2015)	Hyaluronic acid	XHA hydrogel scaffold and high expression of TβRI/ALK5 and TβRII facilitate regeneration of IVD by WJ-MSCs
Li et al. (2017)	Porous chitosan/poly (l-lactic acid) scaffold	Tissue engineered for greater IVD regeneration than blank control and autologous bone
Choi et al. (2020)	Hyaluronan-methylcellulose hydrogels	Combined injection of WJ-MSCs and HAMC enhanced IVD regeneration through increase in cell survival, attenuation of the activation of iNOS, MMP-13, ADAMTS4 and COX-2, and significant upregulation of ECM.

UCMSCs, Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells; ECM, extracellular matrix; XHA, Cross-linked hyaluronic acid.