[Articular cartilage regenerative therapy with synovial mesenchymal stem cells in a pig model]

Current therapies for cartilage injury remain some issues such as the quality of regenerated cartilage and its invasiveness. We have been trying to develop a low invasive treatment for cartilage regeneration with synovial mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) . Here we introduce our preclinical study with miniature pigs whose knee joints are similar to those of humans in terms of size and cartilage metabolism. Cartilage defect was created at the weight bearing area of both porcine knee joints. Synovial MSCs were transplanted by delivering a synovial MSC suspension onto the cartilage defect of the one side and the knee was kept immobilized for 10 minutes. Sequential arthroscopic and histological observations showed the contribution of synovial MSCs after transplantation, and a better hyaline cartilaginous-tissue regeneration in the MSC-treated knees than in the non-treated control knees at 12 weeks. Based on this and other preclinical studies, we have started a clinical study for cartilage regeneration with autologous synovial MSCs.