Extracellular Matrix Delays Articular Chondrocyte Dedifferentiation and Enhances Redifferentiation

Introduction Articular cartilage is a highly specialized tissue that is vulnerable to injury and disease and has a limited capacity for self-regeneration. The autologous chondrocyte transplantation technique has not been successful because of rapid dedifferentiation of chondrocytes in monolayer culture, producing fibroblast-specific markers (mainly collagen I) rather than a cartilage-specific matrix of collagen II. Our previous study developed a novel method to rapidly expand mesenchymal stem cells and improve their chondrogenic differentiation potential using a three-dimensional extracellular matrix (ECM) . In this study, we hypothesized that ECM would effectively delay the process of chondrocyte dedifferentiation and improve chondrocyte redifferentiation capacity in a pellet culture system.