Nanostructured Biomaterial-Based Approaches to Support Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Differentiation

The possibility to control the proliferation of stem cells and guide their differentiation toward specific cellular lineages holds great promise as a potential therapeutic approach for regenerating and substituting damaged tissues, and in the treatment of several human diseases. In recent years, developing strategies for obtaining induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from adult tissues has been a groundbreaking scientific discovery; the rationale behind the exploitation of iPSCs in therapy consists in the isolation of adult cells, their reprogramming into iPSCs, and the subsequent differentiation into somatic cells. However, traditional differentiation procedures usually cannot finely tune and control the differentiation of iPSCs, leading to undesired cellular subpopulations and potentially adverse effects in the case of cellular grafting in adult tissues. In this context, nanostructured biomaterial-based approaches for the guided differentiation of iPSCs represent a promising tool for overcoming the limitations of traditional protocols. This review aims to provide the current state of the art concerning the exploitation of nanostructured biomaterials (scaffolds or nanocarriers) to control and tune the differentiation processes of iPSCs. With this work, it is hoped to provide new insights and perspectives into biomaterial designing and application strategies in the context of iPSC-based studies.