Therapeutic applications of mesenchymal stem cells for cartilage repair

Abstract

Musculoskeletal medicine has to face major challenges, one of which is the injuries to articular cartilage due to the poor intrinsic ability of this tissue for repair. The lack of efficient modalities of treatment for large chondral defects has prompted research on tissue engineering and promising therapies rely on the use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) which can differentiate towards chondrocytes. Such approaches of tissue engineering aim at combining chondrogenic cells, scaffold materials and environmental factors to form a neotissue that will replace the degraded cartilage. Moreover, new strategies of cell therapy rely on the trophic properties of MSCs with the objective that secreted factors will induce cartilage regeneration or at least cartilage protection against further degradation with time. The aim of this review is to focus on the recent advances on cell therapy for cartilage repair. These include: (1) defining the optimal combination of cell candidates, biodegradable matrix scaffolds and more specific growth factors and (2) discussing the various effects that MSCs may exert on endogenous cartilage to favour cartilage protection. © 2012 American Scientific Publishers. All rights reserved.