Functional groups tissue engineering

In order to develop a tissue-engineered heart valve, a group at Children s Hospital in Boston evaluated several synthetic absorbable polyesters as potential scaffolding materials for heart valves. Unfoitu-nately, the most synthetic polyesters proved to be too stiff to be function as flexible leaflets inside a tri-leaflet valve. " In the late 1990s, a much more flexible PHAs called poly-3-hydroxyoctanoate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate (PHO) was used as the scaffold material for the valve leaflet, and then the entire heart valve. ... 

Concurrent with these investigations, polyphosphazene matrices, functionalized with aminoacid esters or with imidazole groups, became of importance because of their tissue engineering aspects in bone regeneration [655,656,679], treatment of periodontal diseases [657], and nerve reconstruction problems [680-682] in which the remarkable bio compatibility of POP matrices was coupled with their tuneable bio degradability. 

Chitosan has three types of reactive functional groups that allow modifications of chitosan to produce various useful hydrogels for tissue engineering applications [146]. 

In addition to the release of acidic degradation products, another deficiency of polyesters used in tissue engineering is their lack of functional groups. To improve biocompatibility of PLLA and PGA, some researchers have processed these polyesters with amino acids such as glycine and lysine. - ... 

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