Abstract
Background. The ATDC5 cell line is regarded as an excellent cell model for chondrogenesis. In most studies with ATDC5 cells, insulin medium (IM) was used to induce chondrogenesis while chondrogenic medium (CM), which was usually applied in chondrogenesis of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), was rarely used for ATDC5 cells. This study was mainly designed to investigate the effect of IM, CM, and growth medium (GM) on chondrogenesis of ATDC5 cells. Methods. ATDC5 cells were, respectively, cultured in IM, CM, and GM for a certain time. Then the proliferation and the chondrogenesis progress of cells in these groups were analyzed. Results. Compared with CM and GM, IM promoted the proliferation of cells significantly. CM was effective for enhancement of cartilage specific markers, while IM induced the cells to express endochondral ossification related genes. Although GAG deposition per cell in CM group was significantly higher than that in IM and GM groups, the total GAG contents in IM group were the most. Conclusion. This study demonstrated that CM focused on induction of chondrogenic differentiation while IM was in favor of promoting proliferation and expression of endochondral ossification related genes. Combinational use of these two media would be more beneficial to bone/cartilage repair.
Highlights
Cartilage is a very complex and avascular tissue, which would lead to the limited capacity for self-repair once cartilage is damaged
Cells in growth medium (GM) groups kept proliferating at a moderate speed until day 7 while the cells in chondrogenic medium (CM) group grew at the lowest rate and ceased proliferation after day 5
The quantity of double-strand DNA (dsDNA) content in insulin medium (IM) group was the highest among all the groups at day 3, day 5, and day 14, suggesting that IM promoted the proliferation of cells significantly
Summary
Cartilage is a very complex and avascular tissue, which would lead to the limited capacity for self-repair once cartilage is damaged. In principle, autologous chondrocytes are the best cells for cartilage tissue engineering applications, it is difficult to acquire sufficient chondrocytes for tissue repair because of the damage to the donor, poor proliferation in vitro, and so on [1, 2] In this context, stem cells including embryonic and mesenchymal cells appear as a promising alternative and are widely studied for cartilage regeneration [3]. This study demonstrated that CM focused on induction of chondrogenic differentiation while IM was in favor of promoting proliferation and expression of endochondral ossification related genes. Combinational use of these two media would be more beneficial to bone/cartilage repair
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