Novel injectable gel (system) as a vehicle for human articular chondrocytes in cartilage tissue regeneration

摘要

We developed a novel injectable carrageenan/fibrin/hyaluronic acid-based hydrogel with in situgelling properties to be seeded with chondrogenic cells and used for cartilage tissue engineeringapplications. We first analysed the distribution within the hydrogel construct and the phenotype ofhuman articular chondrocytes (HACs) cultured for 3 weeks in vitro. We observed a statisticallysignificant increase in the cell number during the first 2 weeks and maintenance of cellviability throughout the cell culture, together with the deposition/formation of a cartilage-specificextracellular matrix (ECM). Taking advantage of a new in vivo model that allows the integrationbetween newly formed and preexisting cartilage in immunodeficient mice to be investigated, weshowed that injectable hydrogel seeded with human articular chondrocytes was able to regenerateand repair an experimentally made lesion in bovine articular cartilage, thus demonstrating thepotential of this novel cell delivery system for cartilage tissue engineering.