Nonwoven membranes for tissue engineering: an overview of cartilage, epithelium, and bone regeneration

Scaffold-type biomaterials are crucial for application in tissue engineering. Among them, the use of a nonwoven scaffold has grown in recent years and has been widely investigated for the regeneration of different types of tissues. Several polymers, whether they are synthetic, biopolymers or both, have been used to produce a scaffold that can mimic the natural tissue to which it will be applied to. The scaffolds used in tissue engineering must be biocompatible and allow cell adhesion and proliferation to be applied in tissue engineering. In addition, the scaffolds should maintain the mechanical properties and architecture of the desired tissue. Nonwoven fabrics have produced good results and are more extensively applied for the regeneration of cartilage, epithelial and bone tissues. Recent advances in tissue engineering have shown promising results, however, no ideal material or standardization parameters and characteristics of the materials were obtained. The present review provides an overview of the application of nonwoven scaffolds, including the main results obtained regarding the properties of the biomaterials and their applications in vitro and in vivo, focusing on the cartilaginous, the epithelium, and bone tissue regeneration.