Engineering biomaterials for anchorage-dependent and non-anchorage-dependent therapeutic cell delivery in translational medicine

The delivery of functional and viable biological cells may potentially become a medical solution to replace the lost or abnormal cells, tissues, and organs. Cell delivery methods should deliver and localize viable and functional cells to the target site with high efficiency to repair the defect. Many research efforts have been focused on developing cell delivery vehicles, which are scaffold systems that carry cells. The biomaterials used in the scaffolds are crucial in determining the success of cell delivery-cells are able to interact with the environmental cues presented by biomaterials and modify their behavior accordingly. Cells can be categorized according to their dependence on anchorage to the extracellular matrix (ECM)-anchorage-dependent cells (ADCs) such as muscle cells and neurons require extensive cell adhesion to a substrate in order to survive and function properly, while non-anchorage-dependent cells (non-ADCs) such as chondrocytes and hepatocytes do not and often exhibit a rounded morphology in native environment. Here, the different cell delivery structures and their development in delivering both ADCs and non-ADCs are discussed.