Engineering multifunctional bioactive citrate-based biomaterials for tissue engineering

Developing bioactive biomaterials with highly controlled functions is crucial to enhancing their applications in regenerative medicine. Citrate-based polymers are the few bioactive polymer biomaterials used in biomedicine because of their facile synthesis, controllable structure, biocompatibility, biomimetic viscoelastic mechanical behavior, and functional groups available for modification. In recent years, various multifunctional designs and biomedical applications, including cardiovascular, orthopedic, muscle tissue, skin tissue, nerve and spinal cord, bioimaging, and drug or gene delivery based on citrate-based polymers, have been extensively studied, and many of them have good clinical application potential. In this review, we summarize recent progress in the multifunctional design and biomedical applications of citrate-based polymers. We also discuss the further development of multifunctional citrate-based polymers with tailored properties to meet the requirements of various biomedical applications.