The inductive effect of microcapsuled chondrocytes cocultured with bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:Traditional coculture methods for directional differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, such as direct contact method and Transwel coculture system, appear to have low purity and slow proliferation. OBJECTIVE:To compare the inductive effect of microcapsule coculture system and traditional transwel coculture system on the differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells. METHODS:The passage 2 microcapsuled chondrocytes and the passage 3 bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells harvested from rabbits were co-cultured at a ratio of 1:1 in a Transwel chamber. Another passage 2 chondrocytes and passage 3 bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells were co-cultured using traditional transwel coculture system. Pure bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells were served as controls. MTT assay was used to compare cellproliferation, toluidine blue staining and safranine O staining were used for observation of cartilage matrix synthesis, alcian blue staining and ELISA test were used to measure glycosaminoglycans and synthesis of type II col agen, respectively. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Compared with the traditional co-culture method, the microcapsule coculture system and pure culture method showed better cellproliferation (P<0.05). The levels of glycosaminoglycans and type II col agen were higher in the microcapsule coculture group than the traditional coculture group and pure culture group (P<0.05). Moreover, the microcapsule coculture group showed better outcomes in toluidine blue staining and safranine O staining than the traditional coculture group and pure culture group. These findings indicate that the microcapsule coculture system is more effective in the induction of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells than traditional Transwel coculture system.