Multicomponent Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering Applications

Abstract

Tissue damage caused by disease, aging, or trauma has been a major concern for healthcare professionals. Tissue engineering, as an emerging field, offers the potential to restore damaged tissues. Given the high similarity to human tissues and tunable physical and biological properties, hydrogels are appealing biomaterials for applications in tissue engineering. However, owing to the distinct complex architecture as well as 3D organization and distribution of different components of the native extracellular matrix (ECM), it is still a significant challenge to precisely recapitulate the complexity of the ECM by artificial hydrogels. In recent years, rationally designed multicomponent hydrogels have opened new routes to mimic both composition and structural characteristics of the native ECM and provided a supportive environment for tissue regeneration. This chapter highlights the principles of multicomponent hydrogel designs and recent advances in their applications in various subfields of tissue engineering.