Surface Topographic Effect on Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Tissue Engineering

Abstract

In the field of tissue engineering, researches have been actively conducted to regulate stem cell fate by understanding the interaction between cell and materials. This approach is expected as a promising therapeutic method in the future medicine by utilizing differentiation of stem cells into desired cells or tissues using biomaterial. For this regenerative medicine, there exist lots of attempts to construct optimized structures of various shapes and sizes that can regulate the stem cell fate. In this review, we will empathize the topographic effect as stem cell niche on the mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) response (cell attachment, proliferation, and differentiation) according to the shape and size of the structure of the substrates, and comprehensively analyze the importance and the effect of shape and size of the surface topography.