TABLE 2.
Different scaffolds to deliver cell therapies for wound healing.
| Delivery method | Benefits | Limitations | Citations |
| Alginate hydrogel | – Mechanical properties of hydrogel can be tuned | – Limited long-term stability in physiologic conditions | Percival and McCarty, 2015; Aderibigbe and Buyana, 2018; Salehi et al., 2020; Zhang and Zhao, 2020; Zhang et al., 2020 |
| – Establish a robust microenvironment for cells | – Must be modified with an adhesive ligand | ||
| Collagen hydrogel | – Primary organic constituent of native ECM | – Damage to its covalent cross-links upon extraction weakens hydrogels, which can then disintegrate on handling or under the pressure of surrounding tissues in vivo. | Helary et al., 2012; Chattopadhyay and Raines, 2014; Chen et al., 2018; Stoica et al., 2020 |
| – Highly biocompatible and cytocompatible, amenable to cell adhesion without modification | |||
| Fibrin hydrogel | – Natural role as a matrix involved in hemostasis and wound healing | – Fibrin can be especially susceptible to protease-mediated degradation | Ahmed et al., 2007; Janmey et al., 2009; Moreno-Arotzena et al., 2015; Murphy et al., 2017 |
| – Can trigger encapsulated cells to secrete ECM components and reparative growth factors | |||
| Hyaluronic acid (HA) hydrogel | – Chemical tunability | – In modifications like cross-linked HA-aldehyde or HA-amine derivatives, there are disadvantages: the modification procedure involves many synthesis and purification steps, and the crosslinking chemistries that occur upon mixing are hard to control and yield inconsistent gels | Baier Leach et al., 2003; Silva et al., 2016 |
| – Favorable mechanical properties, biocompatibility, and biodegradation capacity | |||
| Poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) | – Fosters viability and proliferation of seeded ASCs | – Poor biocompatibility | Schaffer et al., 1994; Razavi and Thakor, 2018 |
| Poly-(ethylene glycol) (PEG) | – Versatility in chemical modification and ability to finely tune mechanical properties | – Synthesized in combination with natural polymers or biomimetic peptides as lack the biochemical properties for cellular interaction | Zhu and Marchant, 2011 |
| Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) | – Extensively studied | – Poor biocompatibility | Uematsu et al., 2005; Sadeghi-Avalshahr et al., 2017 |
| – One of the most widely used polymers for materials science engineering applications | – Challenging to fixate within wound bed | ||
| Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) | – Highly crosslinked gels possess longer degradation times | – In general, highly crosslinked gels possess longer degradation times | Henderson et al., 2010 |
| Pullulan-collagen hydrogel | – Best approximate the porous ultrastructure of native reticular ECM | – It is possible that the hydrogel microenvironment is hypoxic | Wong et al., 2011b; Rustad et al., 2012 |
| – Easy engineering of the mechanical properties | |||
| – Able to support the growth of multiple cell types | |||
| – Minimal rejection and favorable biomaterial-tissue integration | |||
| Gelatin hydrogel | – Excellent biocompatibility | – Accelerated biodegradation compared to other hydrogels | Kang and Park, 2021 |
| – Ease of chemical modification | – Variation between synthesized bathes | ||
| – Weak mechanical properties |