Culture Of Mesenchymal Stem Cells For Reparation Of Defects In Cartilage

Objective:This project is to test if tissue engineering using mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as seed cells can repair the defects in the joint cartilage. Method: The research objects in this experiment are 12 New Zealand white rabbits . Through iliac pucturation, we get the bone marrow. After isolation and purification, we get mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Using MSCs as seed cells and polyglycolic acid /polylactic acid (PGA/PLA) as biomaterial scaffold, we make cells-scaffold compound (A + C) and repair the defects in the joint cartilage of rabbit models and at the same time use only scaffold (B) and blank (D) as negtive control. We draw the materials from the reparation tissue in the cartilage at the different time of 1 month(4 rabbits), 3 months(4 rabbits) and 6 months(4 rabbits) after operation. Gross observation, histological examination and proteoglycans determination are made with the reparation tissues. Result: According to observation in general and histological examination , BMSCs basically can repair the defects in cartilage, and the reparation tissues are composed of hyaline cartilage and spongy bone . But in the negtive control there are only bad reparation tissue made of fibrous tissue or no neogenesis tissue at all and the defects in the bone and cartilage exist apparently. The content of proteoglycans of the reparation tissues of A group is 83.70% the content of the normal cartilage at thetime of 1 month after operation, which has make significance compared with normal cartilage. The content of proteoglycans becomes 94.18% the normal cartilage tissue, which make no significance compared with the normal cartilage tissue. Conclusion: BMSCs can differentiate into chondrocytes and osteoblasts in the defect in the joint cartilage , repair the compound defects of bone and cartilage and regain the normal structure of cartilage.