Synthetic Morphogens and Pro-morphogens for Aided Tissue Regeneration - Biologically Responsive Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering - page 60

3.9 Conclusions

Knowledge deriving from the biochemical signalling controlling tissue morphogen-
esis in embryonic and adult tissues offers the potential for the development of new
therapeutic tools in regenerative medicine. To facilitate and control the cell-to-cell
communication pathways, peptides and polymers can be synthesised that are capa-
ble of exposing to the damaged tissue either specific cell bioligands or functional
groups able to bind bioactive molecules. These macromolecules would thus act as
biomimetic pro-morphogens contributing to the generation of biochemical signal-
ling gradients (Fig. 3.1 , lower and upper pathways). In the first case, biomaterial
scaffolds would be tethered with bioligands specifically encouraging the colonisa-
tion of “intermediate organisers” able to process morphogens/growth factors
secreted by the “organiser” cells (Fig. 3.1 , lower pathway). In the second case, the
exposure of functional groups of natural or synthetic origin able to capture endog-
enous morphogens could contribute to the establishment of biochemical gradients
(Fig. 3.1 , upper pathway). Finally, in the clinical cases where tissue regeneration
potential has significantly been comporomise, the use of these so-called synthetic
pro-morphogens could be combined with that of specific peptidic growth factor
analogues to generate ex novo completely synthetic gradients.

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