Giannoni Paolo, Cancedda Ranieri
Biorigen s r l, Genova, Italy.
Cells Tissues Organs. 2006;184(1):1-15. doi: 10.1159/000096946.
Articular cartilage displays a limited capacity of self-regeneration after injury. Thus, the biology of this tissue and its cellular components - the chondrocytes - has become the focus of several investigations, driven by tissue engineering and the basic and clinical research fields, aiming to ameliorate the present clinical approaches to cartilage repair. In this work, we present a brief recapitulation of the events that lead to cartilage development during the skeletal embryonal growth. The intrinsic phenotypic plasticity of the mesenchymal precursors and the adult chondrocytes is evaluated, dependent on the cell source, its physiopathological state, and as a function of the donor's age. The phenotypic changes induced by the basic culturing techniques are also taken into account, thus highlighting the phenotypic plasticity of the chondrocyte as the main property which could couple the differentiation process to the repair process. Chondrocyte proliferation and the contemporary maintenance of the chondrogenic differentiation potential are regarded as the two primary goals to be achieved in order to fulfill the quantitative needs of the clinical applications and the qualitative requirements of a properly repaired tissue. In this light, the effects of several growth factors and medium supplements are investigated. Finally, the latest improvements in culturing conditions and their possible clinical applications are presented as well.
关节软骨损伤后自我修复能力有限。因此，受组织工程以及基础和临床研究领域的推动，该组织及其细胞成分——软骨细胞的生物学特性已成为多项研究的焦点，旨在改进目前的软骨修复临床方法。在这项工作中，我们简要概述了骨骼胚胎发育过程中导致软骨形成的事件。评估了间充质前体细胞和成年软骨细胞的内在表型可塑性，这取决于细胞来源、其生理病理状态以及供体年龄。还考虑了基本培养技术诱导的表型变化，从而突出了软骨细胞的表型可塑性，这是将分化过程与修复过程联系起来的主要特性。软骨细胞增殖和软骨形成分化潜能的同时维持被视为实现临床应用定量需求和修复组织质量要求的两个主要目标。鉴于此，研究了几种生长因子和培养基添加剂的作用。最后，还介绍了培养条件的最新改进及其可能的临床应用。
