Culture and phenotyping of chondrocytes in primary culture

The culture of chondrocytes is one of the most powerful tool for exploring the intracellular and molecular features of chondrocyte differentiation and activation. However, chondrocytes tend to dedifferentiate to fibroblasts when they are subcultured, which is a major problem. This chapter describes several protocols for culturing chondrocytes of different anatomical origins (articular and costal chondrocytes) from various species (humans, mice, rabbits, and cattle). All these protocols involve primary cultures in order to limit dedifferentiation. This chapter also describes a new protocol for culturing mouse articular chondrocytes.