The Collagen-Based Scaffolds for Bone Regeneration: A Journey through Electrospun Composites Integrated with Organic and Inorganic Additives

Abstract

Orthopedics has been identified as a major clinical medicine branch since the 18th century for musculoskeletal disease diagnosis and therapeutics. Along with technological progress, the surgical treatment of bone disorders became available in the 19th century, while its growth faced several obstacles due to a lack of proper biocompatible material and alternative structures. Therefore, tissue engineering has emerged as a key building block to overcome these challenges, providing the capability for bone growth, and fabricating scaffolds with enriched desirable cellular compatibility as well as mechanical properties. Among various structures, the electrospun layer has implied high porosity and fine pore sizes, and succeeded in cell growth and proliferation. Collagen nanofibers have represented a wide potential for mineralization, bone regeneration, and forming processes. Despite this, such scaffolds have accosted bone remodeling limitations due to inadequate osteoinductivity and mechanical strength. Hence, the tendency to fabricate efficient collagen-based nanofibrous layers enriched with organic and inorganic materials has been extensively declared. Embedding these materials leads to engineering a membrane with appropriate physical, degradability, and mechanical properties, as well as proper mineralization and biological activity required for better replicating the bone organ’s natural microenvironment. This paper highlighted a wide overview of the natural resources, electrospinning strategies, and collagen-based electrospun composites for bone regeneration. Accordingly, future prospects could be developed for generating novel 3D-scaffold formations, benefiting from organic and inorganic substances to boost the biological and mechanical properties, simultaneously.