Rejuvenated Stem/Progenitor Cells for Cartilage Repair Using the Pluripotent Stem Cell Technology

Abstract

It is widely accepted that chondral defects in articular cartilage of adult joints are never repaired spontaneously, which is considered to be one of the major causes of age-related degenerative joint disorders, such as osteoarthritis. Since mobilization of subchondral bone (marrow) cells and addition of chondrocytes or mesenchymal stromal cells into full-thickness defects show some degrees of repair, the lack of self-repair activity in adult articular cartilage can be attributed to lack of reparative cells in adult joints. In contrast, during a fetal or embryonic stage, joint articular cartilage has a scar-less repair activity, suggesting that embryonic joints may contain cells responsible for such activity, which can be chondrocytes, chondroprogenitors, or other cell types such as skeletal stem cells. In this respect, the tendency of pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) to give rise to cells of embryonic characteristics will provide opportunity, especially for humans, to obtain cells carrying similar cartilage self-repair activity. Making use of PSC-derived cells for cartilage repair is still in a basic or preclinical research phase. This review will provide brief overviews on how human PSCs have been used for cartilage repair studies.

Insights into the present and future of cartilage regeneration and joint repair

“…This idea arises from the fact that particulated juvenile allograft cartilage (PJAC) transplantation has shown better long-term efficacy compared with, e.g., microfractures (Zhang et al, 2021 ; Adkisson et al, 2010 ). Nakayama et al explore the possibility to treat cartilage lesions with iPSCs differentiated into juvenile chondrocytes, aiming to avoid the safety issues but letting the final differentiation to fully mature cells take place after transplantation (Nakayama et al, 2021 ).…”

Natural based hydrogels promote chondrogenic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells

“…Unlike chondrocytes, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can be isolated from various tissues, such as bone, bone marrow, fat, and synovial membrane and fluid ( Rezaei et al, 2020 ). MSCs have been thoroughly investigated as cell origins for cartilage tissue engineering because of their ability to adhere to and mature on plastic and differentiate into chondrocytes and other lineages such as adipocytes and osteoblasts (tri-lineage potential) under conditions optimized for single lineages ( Nakayama et al, 2021 ; Thorp et al, 2021 ). The base of human tissue-like substitute manufacturing in tissue engineering is the mixture of human cells with biocompatible biomaterials as scaffolds ( Ortiz-Arrabal et al, 2021 ).…”