[Relationship between gene transfer and cartilage tissue engineering]

Injury to the articular cartilage occurs under various pathological conditions such as trauma, inflammation and aging and is followed by osteoarthritic changes of the affected joints. Recently, some studies have revealed that enough chondrogenic proliferation was required using some factors such as TGF-beta and BMPs. We, also, have reported that synovial tissues include multipotent mesenchymal stem cells, which can differentiate into chondrocytes. These results suggest that not only are synovial cells a good therapeutic target of inflammatory joint diseases, but also can be utilized for tissue engineering of cartilage.