Bone tissue engineering (BTE) encompasses the field of biomaterials, cells, and bioactive molecules to successfully guide the growth and repair of bone tissue. Current BTE strategies rely on delivering osteogenic molecules or cells via scaffolding materials. However, growth factor- and stem cell-based treatments have several limitations, such as source restriction, low stability, difficulties in predicting long-term efficacy, and high costs, among others. These issues have promoted the development of material-based therapy with properties of accessibility, high stability, tunable efficacy, and low-cost production. Hydrogels are widely used in BTE applications because of their unique hydrophilic nature and tunable physicochemical properties to mimic the native bone environment. However, current hydrogel materials are not ideal candidates due to minimal osteogenic capability on their own. Therefore, recent studies of BTE hydrogels attempt to counterbalance these issues by modifying their biophysical properties. In this article, we review recent progress in the design of hydrogels to instruct osteogenic potential and present strategies developed to precisely control its bone healing properties.

中文翻译：

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水凝胶的合理设计以增强成骨潜力

骨组织工程 (BTE) 涵盖生物材料、细胞和生物活性分子领域，以成功引导骨组织的生长和修复。当前的 BTE 策略依赖于通过支架材料递送成骨分子或细胞。然而，基于生长因子和干细胞的治疗有几个局限性，例如来源限制、稳定性低、难以预测长期疗效和高成本等。这些问题促进了具有可及性、高稳定性、可调功效和低成本生产等特性的基于材料的疗法的发展。水凝胶因其独特的亲水性和可调节的物理化学特性而被广泛用于 BTE 应用，以模拟天然骨环境。然而，目前的水凝胶材料由于其自身的成骨能力极小而不是理想的候选材料。因此，最近对 BTE 水凝胶的研究试图通过改变其生物物理特性来平衡这些问题。在本文中，我们回顾了水凝胶设计以指导成骨潜力的最新进展，并提出了为精确控制其骨愈合特性而开发的策略。