Preliminary study on tissue-engineered cartilage with human dermal fibroblasts co-cultured with porcine chondrocytes in vitro / 中华整形外科杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To explore the feasibility of constructing tissue-engineered cartilage with human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs) in vitro.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Porcine articular chondrocytes and HDFs were isolated and in vitro expanded respectively. Then they were mixed at the ratio of 11 (chondrocytes fibroblasts) . The mixed cells were seeded onto polyglycolic acid (PGA) scaffold at the ultimate concentration of 5.0 x 10(7)/ml as co-culture group. Chondrocytes and HDFs at the same ultimate concentration were seeded respectively onto the scaffold as chondrocyte group ( positive control group) and fibroblast group ( negative control group). The specimens were collected after in vitro culture for 8 weeks. Gross observation, histology and immunohistochemistry were used to evaluate the results.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>In chondrocyte group, the cell-scaffold constructs could maintain the original size and shape during in vitro culture. The new formed cartilage-like tissue had typical histological structure and extracellular matrix staining similar to normal cartilage. In co-culture group the constructs shrunk slightly at 8 weeks, cartilage-like tissue formed and GAG could be detected for strong expression by Safranin O staining. Furthermore, using the specific identification, a few HDFs derived cells were found to form lacuna structure at the peripheral area of cartilage-like tissue. In fibroblast group, the constructs deformed and shrunk gradually without mature cartilage lacuna in histology.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The 3D-co-culture system can effectively induce the differentiation of HDFs to chondrocytes. The tissue-engineered cartilage can be constructed in vitro with the 3D-co-culture system.</p>