Title

Combination of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells and cartilage fragments contribute to enhanced repair of osteochondral defects

Authors

Mohammed Abbas^1,2,*

Affiliation

¹Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia;

²Sheikh Salem Bin Mahfouz Scientific Chair for Treatment of Osteoarthritis by Stem Cells, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia;

Email

mmabbas@kau.edu.sa

Article Type

Hypothesis

Date

Received May 16, 2017; Revised June 7, 2017; Accepted June 8, 2017; Published June 30, 2017

Cartilage tissue engineering using stem cells and biomaterials is considered a promising approach despite poor outcomes. We hypothesise that articular cartilage fragments provides native environmental cues to enhance stem cell differentiation. As such we evaluated the chondrogenic differentiation and repair of critical size defect in a human explant osteochondral model (OD) using bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) and homogenised cartilage. BM-MSCs were established from the bone-marrow plugs of patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty and characterized. Osteochondral tissue was trimmed and a central drill defect (~2mm) was made. Chondrogenic repair was evaluated by filling the OD defect area with either BM-MSCs (Group II), homogenized cartilage (Group III) or a combination of both BM-MSCs and homogenized cartilage (Group IV). OD with no added cell or tissue served as control (Group I). Samples were maintained in chondrogenic differentiation medium for 28 days. Microscopic images showed maximal OD closure in Group IV. Partial OD closure was observed in Group II and to a lesser extent in Group III. Haematoxylin-eosin staining revealed immature cartilaginous matrix in Group II and more mature matrix in Group IV. Sircol™ Assay showed increased collagen deposition in both Group II and Group IV. Immunostaining for both groups revealed positive staining for type II collagen. Combining BM-MSCs and homogenised cartilage demonstrated enhanced cartilage formation and defect filling in a human ex-vivo osteochondral model.

Keywords

Osteoarthritis; mesenchymal stem cells; tissue engineering; cartilage repair; osteochondral explants

Citation

Abbas, Bioinformation 13(6): 196-201 (2017)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.