In the growth plate, the interplay between parathyroid hormone-related peptide (PTHrP) and Indian hedgehog (Ihh) signaling tightly regulates chondrocyte proliferation and differentiation during longitudinal bone growth. We found that PTHrP increases the expression of Zfp521, a zinc finger transcriptional coregulator, in prehypertrophic chondrocytes. Mice with chondrocyte-targeted deletion of Zf...

background: previous studies have shown that galectin-3, a member of lectin family, is expressed in developing cartilage in mouse embryo and also in growth plate of long bones.   objective: in the present work, the expression pattern of galectin-3 in normal and various grades of osteoarthritic (oa) human articular cartilage has been studied.   methods: using immunohistochemistry and standard we...

Altered chondrocyte differentiation, including development of chondrocyte hypertrophy, mediates osteoarthritis and pathologic articular cartilage matrix calcification. Similar changes in endochondral chondrocyte differentiation are essential for physiologic growth plate mineralization. In both articular and growth plate cartilages, chondrocyte hypertrophy is associated with up-regulated express...

Cartilage injury remains a challenge in orthopedic surgery as articular cartilage only has a limited capacity for intrinsic healing. Autologous chondrocyte transplantation (ACT) is a suitable technique for cartilage repair, but requires articular cartilage biopsies for autologous chondrocyte expansion. The use of heterotopic chondrocytes derived from non-articular cartilage sources such as auri...

The Integrin β1 family is the major receptors of the Extracellular matrix (ECM), and the synthesis and degradation balance of ECM is seriously disrupted during Osteoarthritis (OA). In this scenario, integrins modify their pattern expression and regulate chondrocyte differentiation in the articular cartilage. Members of the Transforming growth factor beta (Tgf-β) Superfamily, such as Growth diff...

The importance of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), as adult stem cells (ASCs) able to divide into a variety of different cells is of utmost importance for stem cell researches. In this study, the ability of cartilage extract to induce differentiation of rat derived omentum tissue MSCs (rOT-MSCs) into chondrocyte cells (CCs) was investigated. After isolation of rOT-MSCs, they were co-cultured with...