Abstract

Human chondrocytes are expanded and used in autologous chondrocyte implantation techniques and are known to rapidly de-differentiate in culture. These chondrocytes, when cultured on tissue culture plastic (TCP), undergo both phenotypical and morphological changes and quickly lose the ability to re-differentiate to produce hyaline-like matrix. Growth on synoviocyte-derived extracellular matrix (SDECM) reduces this de-differentiation, allowing for more than twice the number of population doublings (PD) whilst retaining chondrogenic capacity. The goal of this study was to apply RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) analysis to examine the differences between TCP-expanded and SDECM-expanded human chondrocytes. Human chondrocytes from three donors were thawed from primary stocks and cultured on TCP flasks or on SDECM-coated flasks at physiological oxygen tension (5%) for 4 passages. During log expansion, RNA was extracted from the cell layer (70–90% confluence) at passages 1 and 4. Total RNA was column-purified and DNAse-treated before quality control analysis and next-generation RNA sequencing. Significant effects on gene expression were observed due to both culture surface and passage number. These results offer insight into the mechanism of how SDECM provides a more chondrogenesis-preserving environment for cell expansion, the transcriptome-wide changes that occur with culture, and potential mechanisms for further enhancement of chondrogenesis-preserving growth.

Highlights

  • Arthritis is a debilitating disease, but an expensive one, with total arthritis-attributable medical expenditures and lost earnings surpassing $300 billion USD in 2013 [1]

  • Chondrocytes grown on tissue culture plastic (TCP) typically expanded for 1.8 population doublings (PD) in P1 and 1.4

  • At the end of P4, P4, cells grown on TCP had undergone 7.6 PDs and those on synoviocyte-derived extracellular matrix (SDECM) had undergone 16.0 PDs

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Summary

Introduction

Arthritis is a debilitating disease, but an expensive one, with total arthritis-attributable medical expenditures and lost earnings surpassing $300 billion USD in 2013 [1]. Human chondrocytes, expanded and used in autologous chondrocyte implantation techniques, are known to rapidly de-differentiate in culture [2], which has a detrimental impact on their utility for tissue engineering applications. The use of the term de-differentiation is distinct from the use of the term in re-programming or stem cell literature, as it indicates that the cells no longer have the ability to form hyaline-like cartilage tissue. Culture-expanded chondrocytes undergo both morphological and phenotypical changes and, eventually, lose the ability to produce hyaline like matrix. By passage 4, chondrogenic potential is essentially absent when tested in re-differentiation culture. This loss of differentiation potential limits their efficacy in the clinic and seriously impedes our ability to produce clinical-scale tissue engineering of human cartilage with suitable biomechanical properties

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