A Review of Mechanical Properties of Scaffold in Tissue Engineering: Aloe Vera Composites

Aloe Vera (AV) is a well-known pharmaceutical herb and traditional biomaterial from thousand years ago. AV is also a great potential material in tissue engineering because of its excellent properties such as biocompatible, biodegradable, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, and antimicrobial. In tissue regeneration, scaffold plays an important role to form template for cell growth or tissue repair. There are some requirements in fabricating scaffold to mimic the structure of native parts of the body such as skin, cardiac, nerve, or bone. Here, mechanical properties of AV aiming to be used as scaffold are reviewed. Tensile strength as the main mechanical property of scaffold made from AV and incorporated with other natural materials (chitosan, alginate, collagen, etc.) and synthetic polymers (PCL, PVA, PLGA, etc.) will be discussed. The methods to measure mechanical properties are also being presented in this brief review article. Finally, some of the perspectives will be given for the future development of AV in tissue engineering.