Cartilage tissue engineering using differentiated and purified induced pluripotent stem cells

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

The development of regenerative therapies for cartilage injury has been greatly aided by recent advances in stem cell biology. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have the potential to provide an abundant cell source for tissue engineering, as well as generating patient-matched in vitro models to study genetic and environmental factors in cartilage repair and osteoarthritis. However, both cell therapy and modeling approaches require a purified and uniformly differentiated cell population to predictably recapitulate the physiological characteristics of cartilage. Here, iPSCs derived from adult mouse fibroblasts were chondrogenically differentiated and purified by type II collagen (Col2)-driven green fluorescent protein (GFP) expression. Col2 and aggrecan gene expression levels were significantly up-regulated in GFP+ cells compared with GFP- cells and decreased with monolayer expansion. An in vitro cartilage defect model was used to demonstrate integrative repair by GFP+ cells seeded in agarose, supporting their potential use in cartilage therapies. In chondrogenic pellet culture, cells synthesized cartilage-specific matrix as indicated by high levels of glycosaminoglycans and type II collagen and low levels of type I and type X collagen. The feasibility of cell expansion after initial differentiation was illustrated by homogenous matrix deposition in pellets from twice-passag

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

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