RESEARCH ARTICLE


Improving In Vitro Generated Cartilage-Carrier-Constructs by Optimizing Growth Factor Combination



Katharina Wiegandt, Christiane Goepfert*, Ralf Pörtner
Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering, Hamburg University of Technology, Germany


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Creative Commons License
2007 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering, Hamburg University of Technology, Germany; E-mail: c.goepfert@tu-harburg.de


Abstract

The presented study is focused on the generation of osteochondral implants for cartilage repair, which consist of bone substitutes covered with in vitro engineered cartilage. Re-differentiation of expanded porcine cells was performed in alginate gel followed by cartilage formation in high-density cell cultures. In this work, different combinations of growth factors for the stimulation of re-differentiation and cartilage formation have been tested to improve the quality of osteochondral implants. It has been demonstrated that supplementation of the medium with growth factors has significant effects on the properties of the matrix. The addition of the growth factors IGF-I (100 ng/mL) and TGF-β1 (10 ng/mL) during the alginate culture and the absence of any growth factors during the high-density cell culture led to significantly higher GAG to DNA ratios and Young’s Moduli of the constructs compared to other combinations. The histological sections showed homogenous tissue and intensive staining for collagen type II.

Keywords: Cartilage, osteochondral implants, growth factors, IGF-I, TGF-β1, re-differentiation..