Cartilage and osteoarthritis

Abstract

Cell cultures initiated from human osteoarthritic cartilage explants and studied by DNA synthesis and cell proliferation showed markedly high levels of both in cartilage from osteophytic sites at seven days of culture, but no outgrowth from discolored and little from fibrillated samples were seen under different culture conditions; the results suggest heterogeneous chondrocyte behavior and cell populations depending on the histology of the region sampled.