Table 3.

Advantages and disadvantages of several natural and synthetic polymers have been extensively studied for cartilage tissue engineering, reprinted with permission from [6]. Copyright 2010 Elsevier.

Polymers	Disadvantages	Advantages
Chitosan	Low tensile and compressive properties, low processability.	Antibacterial activity, low toxicity, good cell interaction, good biocompatibility, renewability, water solubility, stability to variations of pH.
Collagen	Low tensile and compressive properties, high degradation rate.	Low antigenicity, good cell adhesion, biological signaling, biodegradability.
Hyaluronic acid	Not support thermodynamically cell attachment. Hydrophilic surface.	No immunogenicity, good cell interaction.
Alginates	Hard processability, low tensile properties.	Injectable polymers, easily crosslinking under mild condition, high and tunable porosity scaffold, high diffusion rates of macromolecules, good cell incorporation.
Poly(ε-caprolactone)	Long term degradation application due to slow degradation rate, susceptible to undergo auto-catalyzed bulk hydrolysis, hydrophobic surface then no cell interaction.	FDA approval, easily processable.
Polyurethane	Acidic degradation byproducts in poly(esther urethanes) causing autocatalyzed degradation and in vivo inflammation.	Good tensile and compressive properties and also biological properties such as cell attachment, incorporation and supporting chondrocyte phenotype, and low infection.
PLGA	Low biological properties such as cell attachment, incorporation and supporting chondrocyte phenotype, releasing acidic degradation byproducts caused inflammatory response.	FDA approval, tailorable physicomechanical properties.