Background:

Articular cartilage injury has a poor repair ability and limited regeneration capacity with therapy based on articular chondrocytes (ACs) implantation. Here, we validated the hypothesis that human nasal septum-derived chondrocytes (hNCs) are potent therapeutic agents for clinical use in cartilage tissue engineering using an injectable hydrogel, type I collagen (COL1).

Methods:

We manufactured hNCs incorporated in clinical-grade soluble COL1 and investigated their clinical potential as agents in an articular defect model.

Results:

The hNCs encapsulated in COL1 (hNC-collagen) were uniformly distributed throughout the collagen and showed much greater growth rate than hACs encapsulated in collagen for the 14 days of culture. Fluorescent staining of hNC-collagen showed high expression levels of chondrocyte-specific proteins under clinical conditions. Moreover, a negative mycoplasma screening result were obtained in culture of hNC-collagen. Notably, implantation of hNC-collagen increased the repair of osteochondral defects in rats compared with implantation of collagen only. Many human cells were detected within the cartilage defects.

Conclusion:

These results provide reliable evidences supporting for clinical applications of hNC-collagen in regenerative medicine for cartilage repair.

中文翻译：

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胶原蛋白凝胶相关的人鼻中隔软骨细胞的评估作为临床适用的软骨修复注射剂。

背景：

通过基于关节软骨细胞（AC）植入的治疗，关节软骨损伤的修复能力差，再生能力有限。在这里，我们验证了以下假设：人鼻中隔软骨细胞（hNCs）是使用可注射的水凝胶，I型胶原蛋白（COL1）在软骨组织工程中临床使用的有效治疗剂。

方法：

我们制造了包含在临床级可溶性COL1中的hNC，并研究了它们在关节缺损模型中作为药物的临床潜力。

结果：

在14天的培养中，封装在COL1中的hNC（hNC-胶原蛋白）均匀分布在整个胶原蛋白中，并显示出比封装在胶原蛋白中的hACs高得多的生长速率。hNC胶原蛋白的荧光染色显示临床条件下软骨细胞特异性蛋白的高表达水平。而且，在hNC胶原蛋白的培养物中获得了阴性的支原体筛选结果。值得注意的是，与仅植入胶原蛋白相比，植入hNC胶原蛋白可增加大鼠骨软骨缺损的修复。在软骨缺陷内检测到许多人类细胞。

结论：

这些结果提供了可靠的证据，支持hNC胶原在软骨修复的再生医学中的临床应用。