Fig. 1

Engineered microenvironment for stem cell therapy. Low cell retention and engraftment exist in vivo transplantation of stem cells. To address these challenges, biochemical or biophysical modifications of biomaterials are urgently needed to establish a favorable microenvironment for stem cell therapy. By means of engineered bioactive scaffolds, a suitable niche was designed to trigger specification events of stem cell fate specification events, enhancing cell differentiation, retention, engraftment, and self-renewal in vivo via cell–matrix or cell–cell interaction, and thus promoting tissue repair and regeneration