Chondrogenic differentiation of bone marrow-derived stem cells cultured in the supernatant of elastic cartilage cells

Abstract

Repair of cartilage defects remains a challenge for surgeons, owing to its poor self-repairing capacity. Cartilage tissue engineering, particularly marrow stem cell-based cartilage regeneration, provides a promising option for the regeneration of damaged cartilage. Although producing tissue-engineered cartilage from marrow stem cells appeared to be a feasible method, constructing certain sub-types of cartilage, including elastic cartilage, remains difficult. Therefore, the present study explored the feasibility of constructing elastic cartilage by culturing bone marrow-derived stem cells (BMSCs) in the supernatant of elastic cartilage cells to generate elastic cartilage. The elastic cartilage cells were obtained from the auricle cartilage of a newborn pig, and BMSCs were isolated from pig bone marrow aspirate. The supernatant of the chondrocytes was collected and then used to the culture BMSCs. At various time-points, the differentiation of BMSCs was evaluated by gross view, histological examination and quantitative polymerase chain reaction. BMSCs changed from spindle-shaped cells into polygonal cells with increasing culture time. The expression of collagen II and elastin was observed in the cells cultured in the supernatant of elastic chondrocytes, while no expression was observed in the control cells. Furthermore, the expression of collagen I and collagen X was downregulated in the cells cultured in the supernatant of elastic cartilage cells. The supernatant of elastic cartilage cells promoted the differentiation of BMSCs into elastic cartilage cells, which may be a promising method for constructing certain sub-types of tissue-engineered cartilage.