“…[ 72 ] Our study indicates that culturing different cell populations in distinct hierarchical zones, without initial close contact, can modulate the extent of cell proliferation over time, whereas direct and close exposure to paracrine signaling between mixed cell sources accelerates proliferation early on, simply due to increased exposure to multicellular factors. Chondrocytes transitioning to a fibroblast‐like phenotype typically display high cellular proliferation rate and low GAG production [ 73–76 ] while hMSCs are known to undergo a series of sequential biological processes to regenerate musculoskeletal tissue: condensation, overt differentiation, proliferation, maturation, hypertrophy, and finally replacement of chondrocytes by osteoblasts and calcified tissue. [ 77–79 ] While it is not possible to distinguish if the modest increase in DNA during coculture is due to hAC‐ or hMSC‐specific proliferation/apoptosis, or a combinations thereof, it indicates that the majority of cells remain in a healthy, low‐proliferative, chondrogenic differentiation phase throughout the culture period across all the investigated culture arrangements.…”