Out With the Old and in With the New: Repairing Damaged Cartilage

Abstract

Imagine experiencing aching pain with every step and every bend of your knee. As time passes, the pain only worsens. Sounds terrible, does it not? Such pain could be caused by a disease called osteoarthritis. This disease involves the breakdown of joint tissue, called cartilage, which normally keeps the bones from rubbing together. Even small injuries to cartilage can lead to osteoarthritis because cartilage lacks the ability to heal itself. A surgical procedure called autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) can be performed after small cartilage injuries, to help prevent osteoarthritis from developing. In ACI, healthy cartilage cells are grown outside the body and then re-implanted into the damaged area. ACI is not perfect; healing is limited because of the artificial environment that the cells are grown in before implantation. This article discusses the changes these cartilage cells undergo when they are grown in an artificial environment, and how our research is addressing this issue to improve the success of ACI.