Maintenance and modulation of stem cells stemness based on biomaterial designing via chemical and physical signals

Pluripotent stem cells have the ability of self-renewal and pluripotency, which makes them promising for application in cell therapy, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Long-term maintenance of stemness is a precondition closer to biomedical applications. Here, besides traditional means, chemical and physical signals based on biomaterial designing have been regarded as major factors that modulate stem cell self-renewal and stemness. To identify the precise role in stemness maintenance which these signals play is essential for future developments, including cell therapy and regenerative medicine. In this review, we summarized the most important chemical and physical methods for self-renewal and stemness maintenance of stem cells. We believed that combining chemical and physical stimulation would provide a promising potential to maintain stem cells stemness through mastering of their advantages and disadvantages. This review included the current findings in biomaterial-based stemness maintenance aimed at being the promising tools tailored for applications in cell therapy and regenerative medicine. Moreover, the existing limitations and future development trends in this field, such as the further exploration of underlying mechanisms, the appropriate parameters setting of physical stimulations (e.g., substrates topography, stiffness, and external force), and the potential development of other substrates, such as bioceramic substrates which have rarely been studied for stemness maintaining of stem cells, were also proposed.