Bio-Engineered Meniscus for Tissue Engineering

Meniscus plays fundamental roles in the knee mechanisms and functions. It acts as a shock absorber where it enables even distribution of forces, and also lubricates knee joints. Meniscal injuries could result to the onset of degenerative osteoarthritis if proper treatments are delayed. To date, treatment of meniscal injuries are more towards conservative methods and surgical approach commonly known as meniscectomy. Attempts to develop scaffolds for meniscus implants from synthetic and biological sources have been done in the recent years. This approach involves a multidisciplinary study known as tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. It involves the combination of three crucial aspects; the choice of chondrogenic/stem cells, bioscaffolds and favourable environmental factors such as growth factors. This chapter discusses and highlights on the currently available meniscal scaffolds that have been explored before. Focus is also directed on the potential of decellularized extracellular matrix (ECM), prepared through sonication treatment that produced scaffolds which mimics natural meniscus. The evaluation of decellularized scaffolds was portrayed through recellularization using cells namely chondrocytes, fibrochondrocytes and stem cells in order to regenerate new functional tissue. In short, this chapter serves as a representation of current approaches aiming in bio-engineering the meniscal scaffolds as meniscus tissue replacement.