ABSTRACT
Current trends in tissue engineering focus on the impact of exogenous and endogenous signals on cells seeded in scaolds. To fully understand the potential impact of these signaling molecules we must rst review their signal expression pathways. In this chapter we focus on two of the most common cells used in skeletal tissue engineering, osteoblasts and chondrocytes. We will discuss the basic biology of the skeletal system and investigate the impact of the dierent signaling molecules such as hormones, cytokines, growth factors, and the mechanotransduction signaling pathway on cell phenotype and gene expression.
