Cartilage Tissue Engineering

In this study, the investigators explored the hypothesis that osteoarthritic cartilage fragments can promote chondrogenesis of MSCs. Non-wearing parts of cartilage tissues were harvested from one osteoarthritic patient during the total knee arthroplasty surgery. Cartilage fragments and MSCs were wrapped into fibrin glue; and the constructs were implanted subcutaneously into nude mice.

Moreover, the investigators will collect the discard cartilage to develop an acellular cartilage ECM-derived scaffold in the joint replacement surgery. In addition, the investigators will harvest the redundant bone marrow from drilling or useless synovium during the surgery to separate the mesenchymal stem cells. Furthermore, these mesenchymal stem cells will be transfected with hTERT for rejuvenation and then will be labeled with fluorescent dye PKH26 for application of animal study. To sum up, the investigators plan to use human, natural, and discard materials from the joint replacement surgery to develop appropriate allograft for cartilage repair and hope that one day this ideal would be apply in clinical.