Muscle tissue engineering – A materials perspective

The research, in the field of tissue engineering, has continuously been advanced over the last few decades. Tissue engineering is defined as the use of scaffold materials(constructive), cells(productive), and biological factors(inductive) to enhance regeneration, repair, and or replace biological tissues and organs. The potential application of tissue engineering is extended to all tissues and organs in the human body. The necessity for muscle tissue engineering stems mainly from degenerative diseases, athletic injuries, and volumetric muscle loss from traumatic injuries. Biocompatible polymers and biological materials are the scaffold of choice in this area of research due to their bioactivity, tunable mechanical properties, and increased bio-integration in comparison to other material groups. In this book chapter the anatomy and physiology of all three muscle tissue groups are highlighted in view of tissue regeneration. Connections between previous research efforts in tissue scaffolding and cellular implementation for muscle tissue engineering are detailed, along with recent prospects which accentuates the current state-of-the-art for muscle tissue engineering.