Abstract
Degenerative cartilage pathologies are nowadays a major problem for the world population. Factors such as age, genetics or obesity can predispose people to suffer from articular cartilage degeneration, which involves severe pain, loss of mobility and consequently, a loss of quality of life. Current strategies in medicine are focused on the partial or total replacement of affected joints, physiotherapy and analgesics that do not address the underlying pathology. In an attempt to find an alternative therapy to restore or repair articular cartilage functions, the use of bioengineered tissues is proposed. In this study we present a three-dimensional (3D) bioengineered platform combining a 3D printed polycaprolactone (PCL) macrostructure with RAD16-I, a soft nanofibrous self-assembling peptide, as a suitable microenvironment for human mesenchymal stem cells’ (hMSC) proliferation and differentiation into chondrocytes. This 3D bioengineered platform allows for long-term hMSC culture resulting in chondrogenic differentiation and has mechanical properties resembling native articular cartilage. These promising results suggest that this approach could be potentially used in articular cartilage repair and regeneration.
Highlights
Cartilage pathologies such as osteoarthritis, injuries or aging affect a large percentage of the world’s population
This tissue, provides low friction elastic surfaces able to withstand dynamic compressive loads several times higher than body weight [5,6]. This behavior can be attributed to the complex biochemical properties and physical structure of the cartilage extracellular matrix (ECM) produced by chondrocytes [7]
HMSCs culture in scaffolds, Following days of human mesenchymal stem cells’ (hMSC) culture in scaffolds, in eitherwere expansion or chondrogenic media, cell viability and metabolic activity related to cell proliferation assessed chondrogenic media, cell viability and metabolic activity related to cell proliferation were assessed using MTT assay
Summary
Cartilage pathologies such as osteoarthritis, injuries or aging affect a large percentage of the world’s population. Articular cartilage is an avascular tissue covering bone ends in articulating joints formed by chondrocytes and a complex extracellular matrix (ECM), where collagen type II, aggrecan proteoglycan and multiadhesive proteins are the main components [3,4]. This tissue, provides low friction elastic surfaces able to withstand dynamic compressive loads several times higher than body weight [5,6]. This behavior can be attributed to the complex biochemical properties and physical structure of the cartilage ECM produced by chondrocytes [7].
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