Short communication tendon regeneration and repair: The role of mesenchymal stem cells

Tendon injuries are common and due to their limited capacity for self-healing, the biomechanical and functional properties of healed tendon are usually inferior to normal tissue. Tissue engineering offers the hope of regenerating tendon tissue with the same biomechanical properties of the native undamaged tissue by augmenting the regenerative process of in vivo tissue or producing a functional tissue in vitrothat can be implanted into the defective tendon site. Current research on tendon tissue engineering has focused on the role of stem cell and tendon derived cell therapy, scaffolds, chemical and physical stimulation and gene-therapeutic approaches. In this chapter we review the important functional anatomy and pathomechanics of tendon injury and discuss the current advances in tendon tissue engineering. © 2012 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.