Mussel-mimetic biomaterials for tissue engineering applications

The range of applications of biomaterials has broadened with the development of recent advances in fabrication techniques. The main goal of tissue engineering is to design biomaterials as scaffolds that, similarly to native tissue, effectively recruit, organize, and develop cells by delivering a combination of cells and biological factors, thus eventually restoring damaged tissues. Mussel-secreted glue materials have been considered as promising bioadhesives due to their biocompatible and strong adhesive properties, even in wet conditions. Thus, most recent approaches have focused on mimicking the adhesive chemistry of mussel, thus conferring those inherent adhesive, sealant, coating, and anchoring properties on biomaterials. This review explores the existing mussel-mimetic biomaterials based on synthetic or natural polymers and their applications in the tissue engineering field as tissue adhesives, coating materials, and drug delivery carriers. We expect that this review will provide insightful discussion on the trend of mussel-mimetic biomaterial design.