Developmental Biology of Musculoskeletal Tissues for Tissue Engineers

Understanding the fundamental process of musculoskeletal development is essential for tissue engineers to develop a more effective approach for regeneration. Learning how stem cells and signals are used to orchestrate the process of musculoskeletal development is particularly important. In this chapter, we will provide a brief overview on the skeletal development and the recent progress on stem cells and cell lineages governing this process. The emerging concept is that multiple and distinct stem cell types are enlisted to support bone growth, maintenance, and repair. We will need to identify more detailed mechanisms of their cell fate specification and differentiation so that tissue engineers can robustly take advantage of the diversity of these skeletal stem cells to achieve more functional regeneration.