Osteoarthritis (OA) is typically managed in late stages by replacement of the articular cartilage surface with a prosthesis as an effective, though undesirable outcome. As an alternative, hydrogel implants or growth factor treatments are currently of great interest in the tissue engineering community, and scaffold materials are often designed to emulate the mechanical and chemical composition of mature extracellular matrix (ECM) tissue. However, scaffolds frequently fail to capture the structure and organization of cartilage. Additionally, many current scaffold designs do not mimic processes by which structurally sound cartilage is formed during musculoskeletal development. The objective of this review is to highlight methods that investigate cartilage ontogenesis with native and model systems in the context of regenerative medicine. Specific emphasis is placed on the use of cartilage explant cultures that provide a physiologically relevant microenvironment to study tissue assembly and development. Ex vivo cartilage has proven to be a cost-effective and accessible model system that allows researchers to control the culture conditions and stimuli and perform proteomics and imaging studies that are not easily possible using in vivo experiments, while preserving native cell–matrix interactions. We anticipate our review will promote a developmental biology approach using explanted tissues to guide cartilage tissue engineering and inform new treatment methods for OA and joint damage.

骨关节炎 (OA) 通常在晚期通过用假体替换关节软骨表面来治疗，这是一种有效但不受欢迎的结果。作为替代方案，水凝胶植入物或生长因子治疗目前在组织工程界引起了极大的兴趣，并且支架材料通常被设计为模拟成熟细胞外基质（ECM）组织的机械和化学成分。然而，支架经常无法捕获软骨的结构和组织。此外，许多当前的支架设计并未模仿肌肉骨骼发育过程中形成结构健全的软骨的过程。本综述的目的是重点介绍在再生医学背景下利用天然系统和模型系统研究软骨个体发生的方法。特别强调使用软骨外植体培养物，为研究组织组装和发育提供生理相关的微环境。离体软骨已被证明是一种经济有效且易于使用的模型系统，使研究人员能够控制培养条件和刺激，并进行蛋白质组学和成像研究，而使用体内实验不容易实现这些研究，同时保留天然细胞-基质相互作用。我们预计我们的审查将促进使用外植组织的发育生物学方法来指导软骨组织工程并为骨关节炎和关节损伤的新治疗方法提供信息。