High Quality of Infant Chondrocytes in Comparison with Adult Chondrocytes for Cartilage Tissue Engineering

BACKGROUND: Tissue engineering is used for the treatment of many diseases, and the ideal cell source for cartilage tissue engineering is chondrocytes. The main limitation of chondrocyte is the low number of cells in cartilage tissue engineering. This study investigated a suitable cell source with high proliferation rate to obtain a large number of chondrocytes. METHODS: Adult cartilage tissue samples were obtained from adult patients undergoing surgical procedure, and infant cartilage tissue samples were obtained from polydactyly surgical waste. After isolation and expansion of chondrocytes, the proliferation rate was evaluated by calculating population doubling time (PDT) and MTT assay for both types of cells. Cartilage film was prepared with sheets of over confluent chondrocytes. The cartilage tissue film from infant and adult chondrocytes were evaluated histologically and by immunefluorescent staining collagen type 2. RESULTS: PDT and MTT assays revealed that the growth rate of the infant chondrocytes was significantly higher than adult chondrocytes. Histological findings showed that sheets were thicker in the cartilage film of infant chondrocytes and they had more extracellular matrix between the sheets of cells than the cartilage film of adult chondrocytes. The findings of the immunofluorescent staining of cartilage film indicated that collagen type II film of polyductily was more positive than adult chondrocytes. CONCLUSION: The recent study presented a new cell source to overcome the limitation of low number of chondrocytes for cell therapy of cartilage defects in adults and also sheets of cells able to overcome the problems of scaffolds.