Study of chondrogenic potential of stem cells in co-culture with chondrons

Three-dimensional biomimetic scaffolds have widespread applications in biomedical tissue engineering due to similarity of their nanofibrous architecture to native extracellular matrix. Co-culture system has stimulatory effect on chondrogenesis of adult mesenchymal stem cells. This work presents a co-culture strategy using human articular chondrons and adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) from infrapatellar fat pad (IPFP) for cartilage tissue production.

Isolated stem cells were characterized by flowcytometry. Electrospun and polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffolds (900 nm fiber diameter) was obtained from Bon Yakhteh (Tehran-Iran) and human infrapatellar fat pad-derived stem cells (IPFP-ASCs) were seeded on them. IPFP-ASCs on scaffolds were co-cultured with articular chondrons using transwell. After 21 day, chondrogenic differentiation of stem cell was evaluated by determining the genes expression of collagen2, aggrecan and Indian hedgehog using real-time RT-PCR.

Genes expression of collagen2, aggrecan by IPFP-ASCs did not alter significantly in comparison with control group. Howevers, expression of Indian hedgehog decreased significantly compared to control group (P< 0.05).

These findings indicate that chondrons obtained from osteoarthritic articular cartilage did not stimulate chondrogenic differentiation of IPFP-ASCs in co-culture.