Applications of recombinant DNA technology in biomaterials and regenerative medicine
| Application | Product or strategy | Host system | Medical purpose | Benefits | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recombinant hydrogel fabrication | Recombinant human collagen (RHC)/carboxylated chitosan (CHI) hydrogels | RHC from engineered cells | Soft tissue engineering and wound healing | Avoids viral contamination and immunogenicity from animal collagen; tunable mechanical/degradation properties; promotes cell adhesion, proliferation, and in vivo wound healing | [52] |
| Improving the silk mechanical properties | Transgenic silkworm silk expressing MaSp1-type repeats with polyalanine motifs | Transgenic Bombyx mori via the piggyBac system | Production of bionic silk for biomedical materials | Increased β-sheet content leads to higher strength and stiffness; potential for scalable production of high-performance silk-based biomaterials | [63] |
| Repair of skull defect | TGF-β3/recombinant human-like collagen/chitosan (TRFS) scaffold loaded with human periodontal ligament stem cells | Recombinant human-like collagen (produced via engineered microbial or eukaryotic systems) | Cranial bone regeneration in traumatic skull defects | Enhances osteogenic differentiation, biocompatibility, and scaffold biodegradability; promotes bone regeneration via stem cell delivery | [64] |
| Osteogenic differentiation of stem cells | Graphene nanogrids fabricated from oxidatively unzipped multi-walled carbon nanotubes (rGONR grid) | Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) from umbilical cord blood | Bone tissue engineering/regeneration | Highly accelerated and patterned osteogenic differentiation (~2.2× vs rGO); enhanced cytoskeletal organization and biocompatibility | [65] |
| Tendon regeneration | Recombinant periostin (rPOSTN) integrated into an aligned collagen scaffold | Tendon stem/progenitor cells (TSPCs), rat model | Achilles tendon repair | rPOSTN promotes TSPC proliferation and tenogenic potential; the scaffold supports hierarchical collagen formation; functional recovery in vivo is demonstrated | [66] |
The authors thank Daniela P. Gárnica-Robledo and Karla P. Martínez-Velázquez for their valuable collaboration during the conception of the idea of this article.
PUMG: Conceptualization, Writing—original draft. LOEM: Conceptualization, Writing—original draft. DSR, JMM, JSL, USA: Writing—original draft. BMN: Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing.
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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LOEM thanks Mexico’s Secretary of Sciences, Humanities, Technology and Innovation (SECIHTI) and the University of Guanajuato for the given scholarships. We thank SECIHTI for project CF-2023-I-2285. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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