The growth plate lacks vascular tissues and is solely composed of chondrocytes. The growth plate is composed of three layers, i.e., the resting, proliferating and hyper-trophic chondrocyte layers. The chon-drocytes in the resting and proliferating layers proliferate and then they uniformly maturate toward the diaphysis to become hypertrophic chondrocytes, which lose the ability to proliferate. ...

Due to the low proliferative and migratory capacities of chondrocytes, cartilage repair remains a challenging clinical problem. Current therapeutic strategies for cartilage repair result in unsatisfactory outcomes. Autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) is a cell based therapy that relies on the in vitro expansion of healthy chondrocytes from the patient, during which proliferation‑promoting...

OBJECTIVE To identify consensus recommendations for the arthroscopic delivery of the matrix-induced autologous chondrocyte implant. DESIGN An invited panel was assembled on November 20 and 21, 2009 as an international advisory board in Zurich, Switzerland, to discuss and identify best practices for the arthroscopic delivery of matrix-induced autologous chondrocyte implantation. RESULTS Arth...

The role of Notch signaling in cartilage differentiation and maturation in vivo was examined. Conditional Notch pathway gain and loss of function was achieved using a Cre/loxP approach to manipulate Notch signaling in cartilage precursors and chondrocytes of the developing mouse embryo. Conditional overexpression of activated Notch intracellular domain (NICD) in the chondrocyte lineage results ...

signal regulatory proteins (sirp) belong to immunoglobulin super family (igsf) and relate to integrin signaling cascades. it has been shown that sirpa is expressed in a variety of cells including myeloid cells and neurons. in the present study the expression of this igsf member in articular chondrocytes was investigated. methods: using a panel of anti-sirpalpha antibodies, immunohistochemistry,...

Few studies have assessed the results of autologous chondrocyte implantation in patients with high-impact activities. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the early functional outcome and activity level after 2-stage autologous chondrocyte implantation in professional soldiers and athletes. Nineteen patients with an average age of 32.2 years were treated with autologous chondrocyte implant...

BACKGROUND Dedifferentiation of chondrocytes remains a major problem for cartilage tissue engineering. Chondrocytes loss differentiated phenotype in in vitro culture that is undesired for repair strategies. The chondrocyte is surrounded by a pericellular matrix (PCM), together forming the chondron. PCM has a positive effect on the maintenance of chondrocyte phenotype during culture in compariso...

BACKGROUND Although the clinical results of autologous chondrocyte implantation for articular cartilage defects have recently improved as a result of advanced techniques based on tissue engineering procedures, problems with cell handling and scaffold imperfections remain to be solved. A new cell-sheet technique has been developed, and is potentially able to overcome these obstacles. Chondrocyte...

During endochondral bone formation, Sox9 expression starts in mesenchymal progenitors, continues in the round and flat chondrocyte stages at high levels, and ceases just prior to the hypertrophic chondrocyte stage. Sox9 is important in mesenchymal progenitors for their differentiation into chondrocytes, but its functions post-differentiation have not been determined. To investigate Sox9 functio...

Cell cycle regulation is critical for chondrocyte differentiation and hypertrophy. Recently we identified the Notch signaling pathway as an important regulator of chondrocyte proliferation and differentiation during mouse cartilage development. To investigate the underlying mechanisms, we assessed the role for Notch signaling regulation of the cell cycle during chondrocyte differentiation. Real...