Cultured articular chondrocytes sheets for partial thickness cartilage defects utilizing temperature-responsive culture dishes.

The extracellular matrix (ECM) of articular cartilage has several functions that are unique to joints. Although a technique for transplanting cultured chondrocytes has already been introduced, it is difficult to collect intact ECM when using enzymes to harvest samples. Temperature-responsive culture dishes have already been clinically applied in the fields of myocardial and corneal transplantation. Earlier studies have shown that a sheet of cultured cells with intact ECM and adhesive factors can be harvested using such culture dishes, which allow the surface properties of the dish to be reversibly altered by changing the temperature. Human chondrocytes were subjected to enzymatic digestion and then were seeded in temperature-responsive culture dishes. A sheet of chondrocytes was harvested by only reducing the temperature after the cultured cells reached confluency. A real-time PCR analysis of the chondrocyte sheets confirmed that type II collagen, aggrecan, and fibronectin were present. These results suggested that, although chondrocytes undergo dedifferentiation in a monolayer culture, multilayer chondrocyte sheets grown in a similar environment to that of three-dimensional culture may be able to maintain a normal phenotype. A histological examination suggested that multilayer chondrocyte sheets could thus prevent the loss of proteoglycans because the area covered by the sheets was well stained by safranin-O. The present experiments suggested that temperature-responsive culture dishes are useful for obtaining cultured chondrocytes, which may then be clinically employed as a substitute for periosteal patches because such sheets can be applied without a scaffold.