ReviewKeynoteHarnessing cAMP signaling in musculoskeletal regenerative engineering

•Regenerative engineering is a new concept for regenerating injured tissues.•Regenerative small molecules have been proposed to regenerate musculoskeletal tissues.•Cyclic AMP and its analogues have gained its importance in tissue regenerationSeveral emerging small molecules have been established for the repair or regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues. Cyclic AMP (cAMP) and its analogs have been the purview of many researchers in that they have been implicated in the repair or regeneration of several musculoskeletal tissues, such as bone, muscle, ligament, cartilage, blood vessels, skin, and nerve. Owing to the varied signal transduction pathways associated with cAMP, it elicits several processes and is thought to either activate or enhance native growth factors, thereby circumventing the need for supraphysiological doses of therapeutic growth factors in musculoskeletal tissue regeneration. In this review, we highlight the developments in using cAMP and its analogs for musculoskeletal regenerative engineering.