Tissue Eng Regen Med.  2018 Apr;15(2):163-172. 10.1007/s13770-017-0094-6.

Chondrogenic Potential of Dedifferentiated Rat Chondrocytes Reevaluated in Two- and Three-Dimensional Culture Conditions

• Jin GZ
• Kim HW

• KMID: 2410511
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1007/s13770-017-0094-6

Abstract

For the cartilage repair, the cell sources currently adopted are primarily chondrocytes or mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Due to the fact that chondrocytes dedifferentiate during 2-dimensional (2D) expansion, MSCs are generally more studied and considered to have higher potential for cartilage repair purposes. Here we question if the dedifferentiated chondrocytes can regain the chondrogenic potential, to find potential applications in cartilage repair. For this we chose chondrocytes at passage 12 (considered to have sufficiently dedifferentiated) and the expression of chondrogenic phenotypes and matrix syntheses were examined over 14 days. In particular, the chondrogenic potential of MSCs was also compared. Results showed that the dedifferentiated chondrocytes proliferated actively over 14 days with almost 2.5-fold increase relative to MSCs. Moreover, the chondrogenic ability of chondrocytes was significantly higher than that of MSCs, as confirmed by the expression of a series of mRNA levels and the production of cartilage extracellular matrix molecules in 2D-monolayer and 3-dimensional (3D)-spheroid cultures. Of note, the significance was higher in 3D-culture than in 2D-culture. Although more studies are needed such as the use of different cell passages and human cell source, and the chondrogenic confirmation under in vivo conditions, this study showing that the dedifferentiated chondrocytes can also be a suitable cell source for the cell-based cartilage repair, as a counterpart of MSCs, will encourage further studies regarding this issue.

Keyword

Dedifferentiated chondrocytes; Mesenchymal stem cells; Chondrogenesis; Three-dimension

MeSH Terms

Animals
Cartilage
Chondrocytes*
Chondrogenesis
Extracellular Matrix
Humans
Mesenchymal Stromal Cells
Phenotype
Rats*
RNA, Messenger
RNA, Messenger