BACKGROUND: Application of tissue engineering in the repair of bone injury has been a research focus in recent years.
OBJECTIVE: To summarize the research status and key problems to be solved on bone tissue engineering.
METHODS: An online search of PubMed database and VIP database was performed for relevant articles published between January 1994 and December 2010, using key words of "tissue engineering; athletic bone injuries; biological scaffold materials; vascularized bone; seed cells" in English and Chinese.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Although great achievements have been made in the repair of bone defect by tissue engineering, but there still exists many unsolved problems in the actual application of tissue engineering in clinical trauma repair: how to solve the problem of seed cell aging and easy loss of phenotype; how to strengthen the affinity between the cell and scaffold materials; how to provide a good blood supply and neural control for the alternative organization; how to construct a more realistic simulation environment so that the cultured cells and prefabricated organs can also stand the test in the body; and how to moderate the immune response, etc.