Ultrasonic manipulation in tissue engineering

Ultrasonic waves exert radiation force on cells and other cell size particles, applied in particle manipulation, growth factor delivery, substance cavitation, and single cell tweezing. Featuring in the safe, contactless, precise, and tunable properties and advantages, ultrasonic waves can be used to control cell's locations aiding in the morphogenesis of complex cell systems, which will be widely used in the future generation tissue engineering. In this review, we summarized current application of ultrasonic waves in the field of cell manipulation and tissue engineering. First, we briefly introduced the physical mechanisms of cell manipulation and described the five kinds of device designs including holographic device, tweezer device, stream standing wave device, surface acoustic wave device, and bulk acoustic wave device. Secondly, we concluded recent works to culture tissue cells in certain spatial patterns using ultrasonic device including bone tissue, cartilage, cardiac muscle, skeletal muscle, endothelial, and neurons. Finally, we systematically highlighted the current challenges and future perspectives. It is believed that this cutting review will substantially stimulate the development and widespread utilization of ultrasonic standing wave in future tissue engineering applications.