Investigation Of The Kinetics And Localization Of Collagen Ⅱ In Human Chondrosarcoma Cells SW1353 And WISP3 Mutant C20/A4 Chondrocytes

Chondrocytes cultured in monolayer divide rapidly, become fibroblastic and lose the intact morphological and biochemical features. There is a gradual shift from the synthesis of type II collagen and proteoglycans (aggrecan) to type I and type III collagen, which is known as "dedifferentiation" of chondrocytes. In the last decade, alginate three-dimensional culture has been extensively used in the chondrocyte engineering and cell biology because it can prevent chondrocytes from dedifferentiation and help a lot to maintaining the cellular morphology by imitating the in vivo three-dimensional environment. SW1353 cell line is derived from a human chondrosarcoma and has been widely used in the functional studies of chondrocytes and related diseases. The present study is designed to characterize the phenotype and function of human chondrosarcoma cells SW1353 in a long-term monolayer culture and the efficiency of three-dimensional culture on dedifferentiation of articular chondrocytes. The results showed that the cells were subjected to a typical dedifferentiation under monolayer culture but could be prevented in alginate three-dimensional culture, in which the so-called 'dormancy' situation with rather lower rates of cell proliferation and type II collagen secretion was responsible for the maintainance of intact chondrocyte phenotype and function.