Engineering cartilage tissue by pellet coculture of chondrocytes and mesenchymal stromal cells

Coculture of chondrocytes and mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) in pellets has been shown to be beneficial in engineering cartilage tissue in vitro. In these cultures trophic effects of MSCs increase the proliferation and matrix deposition of chondrocytes. Thus, large cartilage constructs can be made with a relatively small number of chondrocytes. In this chapter, we describe the methods for making coculture pellets of MSCs and chondrocytes. We also provide detailed protocols for analyzing coculture pellets with cell tracking, proliferation assays, species specific polymerase chain reactions (PCR), short tandem repeats analysis, and histological examination.