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REVIEW article
Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Biomaterials
Volume 13 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1539566
Recent applications of stimulus-responsive smart hydrogels for osteoarthritis therapy
Provisionally accepted
Zhuoming Xu 1
JinTao Liu 1
Hanyin Hu 1
Haiyang Yang 1* Jiayi Chen 2*
Xu Hongwei 2 Haodong Hu 1*
Huanhuan Luo 2* Gang Chen 2*
Jun Ma 2- 1 Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China
- 2 Department of Orthopaedics, Second Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, China
Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common degenerative joint diseases, which seriously affects the life of middle-aged and elderly people. Traditional treatments such as surgical treatment and systemic medication, often do not achieve the expected or optimal results, which leads to severe trauma and a variety of side effects. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop novel therapeutic options to overcome these problems. Hydrogels are widely used in biomedical tissue repairing as a platform for loading drugs, proteins and stem cells. In recent years, smart-responsive hydrogels have achieved excellent results as novel drug delivery systems in the treatment of osteoarthritis. This review focuses on the recent advances of endogenous stimuli (including enzymes, pH, ROS (reactive oxygen species) and temperature, etc.) responsive hydrogels and exogenous stimuli (including light, shear, ultrasound and magnetism, etc.) responsive hydrogels in osteoarthritis treatment. Finally, the current limitations of application and future prospects of smart responsive hydrogels are summarized.
Keywords: Osteoarthritis, articular cartilage, Responsive hydrogel, Drug delivery, Biomaterial application
Received: 05 Dec 2024; Accepted: 20 Jan 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xu, Liu, Hu, Yang, Chen, Hongwei, Hu, Luo, Chen and Ma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Haiyang Yang, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China
Jiayi Chen, Department of Orthopaedics, Second Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, China
Haodong Hu, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China
Huanhuan Luo, Department of Orthopaedics, Second Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, China
Gang Chen, Department of Orthopaedics, Second Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, China
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