Biomaterials affect cell-cell interactions in vitro in tissue engineering

The facts that most tissues or organs consist of a variety of cells suggest that interactions between different types of cells play critical roles in tissue or organ development. In tissue engineering, the effects of biomaterials on cell-cell interactions have recently attracted increasing attention for better elucidating the mechanisms through which biomaterials promote tissue regeneration. Numerous studies have focused on these effects of biomaterials on cell-cell interactions. In this review, comprehensive information was provided about the existing cell co-culture technologies and the main behavioral modes of cell-cell interactions. The effects of biomaterials on the cell-cell interactions in various types of tissue regeneration have been summarized and discussed. In the end, the existing problems and future perspectives that would help promote the research of biomaterials in tissue engineering have been proposed. This article can help researchers to understand the progress and importance of studying the effects of biomaterials on cell-cell interactions in tissue engineering and to choose the optimal cell-cell co-culture models for designing experiments. (C) 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The editorial office of Journal of Materials Science & Technology.