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Review
. 2023 Jun 5;13(25):16773-16788.
doi: 10.1039/d3ra01700a.

Self-healing hydrogels for bone defect repair

Weiwei Li  1 , Yanting Wu  1 , Xu Zhang  1 , Tingkui Wu  2 , Kangkang Huang  2 , Beiyu Wang  2 , Jinfeng Liao  1
Affiliations
Review

Self-healing hydrogels for bone defect repair

Weiwei Li et al. RSC Adv. .

Abstract

Severe bone defects can be caused by various factors, such as tumor resection, severe trauma, and infection. However, bone regeneration capacity is limited up to a critical-size defect, and further intervention is required. Currently, the most common clinical method to repair bone defects is bone grafting, where autografts are the "gold standard." However, the disadvantages of autografts, including inflammation, secondary trauma and chronic disease, limit their application. Bone tissue engineering (BTE) is an attractive strategy for repairing bone defects and has been widely researched. In particular, hydrogels with a three-dimensional network can be used as scaffolds for BTE owing to their hydrophilicity, biocompatibility, and large porosity. Self-healing hydrogels respond rapidly, autonomously, and repeatedly to induced damage and can maintain their original properties (i.e., mechanical properties, fluidity, and biocompatibility) following self-healing. This review focuses on self-healing hydrogels and their applications in bone defect repair. Moreover, we discussed the recent progress in this research field. Despite the significant existing research achievements, there are still challenges that need to be addressed to promote clinical research of self-healing hydrogels in bone defect repair and increase the market penetration.

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Conflict of interest statement

There is no conflict of interest for all the authors.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Process and mechanism of bone healing. (a) Inflammation phase; (b) bone formation phase; (c) remodeling phase. Bone healing is a dynamic and continuous process accompanied by an alternating metabolic model. In each phase, different cells and cytokines play the dominant roles. Reproduced from ref. with permission from Elsevier, copyright 2021.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. The mechanisms of SHHs include chemical covalent crosslinking and physical non-covalent crosslinking.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Schematic illustration (A) of the preparation of injectable hydrogels via Schiff base reaction. (B) The self-healing property of the hydrogels. Reproduced from ref. with permission from Elsevier, copyright 2020.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. Construction of the novel bone grafts (SF@HG@HA) with self-healing capability. (A) Synthesis of specific host (SF–CD) and guest (SF–Chol) macromers. Interaction of β-cyclodextrin (CD, host) and cholesterol (Chol, guest) in formation of a reversible host–guest (HG) complex crosslink. (B) Schematic of supramolecular hydrogel formation through host–guest complexation and its application as bone graft for promoting bone regeneration. Reproduced from ref. with permission from Elsevier, copyright 2021.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5. Schematic illustration to the preparation of the self-healing pre-cross-linked hydrogel microparticles (pcHμPs) by 3D printing for cell spheroid growth. Reproduced from ref. with permission from Wiley, copyright 2020.
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