title: Hyaluronic acid-based scaffold for central neural tissue engineering.
abstract: Central nervous system (CNS) regeneration with central neuronal connections and restoration of synaptic connections has been a long-standing worldwide problem and, to date, no effective clinical therapies are widely accepted for CNS injuries. The limited regenerative capacity of the CNS results from the growth-inhibitory environment that impedes the regrowth of axons. Central neural tissue engineering has attracted extensive attention from multi-disciplinary scientists in recent years, and many studies have been carried out to develop cell- and regeneration-activating biomaterial scaffolds that create an artificial micro-environment suitable for axonal regeneration. Among all the biomaterials, hyaluronic acid (HA) is a promising candidate for central neural tissue engineering because of its unique physico-chemical and biological properties. This review attempts to outline current biomaterials-based strategies for CNS regeneration from a tissue engineering point of view and discusses the main progresses in research of HA-based scaffolds for central neural tissue engineering in detail.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Biomimetic Materials, State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, Department of Materials Science and Engineering , Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084 , People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xiumei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Fu-Zhai
authors.initials: FZ
authors.lastname: Cui
keywords: central nervous system; central neural tissue engineering; hyaluronic acid; regeneration; scaffold