{"id":12623,"date":"2021-06-28T15:11:52","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T14:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=12623"},"modified":"2024-06-26T17:03:47","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T16:03:47","slug":"generating-functional-cartilage-tissue-by-3d-bioprinting-stem-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/generating-functional-cartilage-tissue-by-3d-bioprinting-stem-cells\/12623\/","title":{"rendered":"Generating functional cartilage tissue by 3D bioprinting stem cells"},"content":{"rendered":"
Today, several hundreds of millions of people worldwide are suffering from Osteoarthritis<\/a> (OA). There is also an increase in OA incidence as the population ages, and OA is likely to rise further with the global obesity epidemic. 3D bioprinting technology and stem cell therapies are often considered to be the future of medicine. To treat OA, the aim of the EU funded project RESTORE<\/a> is to generate functional cartilage through 3D bioprinting technology.<\/p>\n A Swedish research team within RESTORE has now achieved a major scientific milestone in the treatment of OA; they have been able to generate functional cartilage tissue by 3D bioprinting chondrocytes into OA lesions. The study was recently published in the scientific journal CARTILAGE<\/em> (Gatenholm, Lindahl, Brittberg, & Simonsson, 2020). A previous study by the research team, demonstrating the formation of functional cartilage by 3D bioprinting stem cells (iPSCs), was published in Scientific Reports<\/em> (Nguyen et al<\/em>., 2017). The stem cells were produced by rejuvenating the patient’s cells into stem cells.<\/p>\n Cartilage is composed of specialised cells called chondrocytes that produce a large amount of collagenous extracellular matrix (ECM) abundant ground substances that contains proteoglycans and elastin fibers. Cartilage is classified into three types: elastic, fibrocartilage, and hyaline cartilage. Elastic, fibrocartilage, and hyaline cartilage differ in the number of proteoglycans and collagen. The function of the collagen is to constrain the proteoglycans.<\/p>\n Articular cartilage is the hyaline cartilage found in the knee joint. Unlike elastic cartilage (ear cartilage), fibrocartilage and hyaline cartilage found in the joints of the body, articular cartilage contains collagen II and the proteoglycan aggrecan (ACAN). The only cells found in articular cartilage are chondrocytes which, unlike mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), are highly specialised and play a unique role in the development, maintenance, and repair of the ECM. Previous studies have shown that transplanted chondrocytes preferably differentiate into cartilage, while MSCs by default differentiate into bone, which is an unwanted feature but similar to OA progression during which bone is usually formed instead of elastic cartilage.<\/p>\n Autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) is a cell-based procedure that has been used for more than 30 years to treat traumatic cartilage lesions (Brittberg et al<\/em>., 1994).\u00a0 Therefore, to achieve the generation of mature articular cartilage after 3D bioprinting, the researchers used primary chondrocytes leftover from autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) knee surgery. Knowledge obtained from previous studies that a large number of cells is required to form a tissue using 3D bioprinting was used to design the experiments. Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting can combine cells with biomaterials and can be used as a tool to distribute cells and biomaterials in the shape of a cartilage lesion or osteoarthritic (OA) defect.<\/p>\n