Plant-derived biomaterials and scaffolds

Plant extracts, polysaccharides and proteins have been used in pharmacological and biomedical applications due to their biochemical properties. Moreover, recent studies showed that structural organization and surface topographies of plants can also be advantageous for tissue engineering applications. The diversity of surface patterns, interconnected pore structure and native vasculature of plants make them promising alternatives as tissue mimicking biomaterials to repair and regenerate damaged tissues. To design biocompatible tissue scaffolds and biomaterials from plants, decellularization came into prominence, which can be described as removal of the nuclear material from plant tissues while keeping the cellulose-based cell wall as three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds. This review is focused on the decellularization procedures of plants and biotechnological and biomedical applications of decellularized plants based on their structural properties. In addition, advances in this field such as state-of-the-art applications of decellularized plants and the comparison between native and decellularized plants are discussed. Finally, the advantages and drawbacks of plant-based biomaterials especially the aspects that have still not been completely understood, such as mechanical stability, degradation profile and reproducibility are indicated as future perspective. Plants have a great potential to serve as biomaterials and scaffolds in tissue engineering but further studies are necessary to investigate the standardization of obtained plant-derived scaffolds and their in vivo biocompatibility and biodegradation.