Decellularized cartilage may be a chondroinductive material for osteochondral tissue engineering.

Extracellular matrix (ECM)-based materials are attractive for regenerative medicine in their ability to potentially aid in stem cell recruitment, infiltration, and differentiation without added biological factors. In musculoskeletal tissue engineering, demineralized bone matrix is widely used, but recently cartilage matrix has been attracting attention as a potentially chondroinductive material. The aim of this study was thus to establish a chemical decellularization method for use with articular cartilage to quantify removal of cells and analyze the cartilage biochemical content at various stages during the decellularization process, which included a physically devitalization step.

Bioactive Microsphere-Based Scaffolds Containing Decellularized Cartilage.

The aim of this study was to fabricate mechanically functional microsphere-based scaffolds containing decellularized cartilage (DCC), with the hypothesis that this approach would induce chondrogenesis of rat bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (rBMSCs) in vitro. The DCC was derived from porcine articular cartilage and decellularized using a combination of physical and chemical methods. Four types of scaffolds were fabricated: poly(d,l-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) only (negative control), TGF-β-encapsulated (positive control), PLGA surface coated with DCC, and DCC-encapsulated.

The bioactivity of cartilage extracellular matrix in articular cartilage regeneration.

Cartilage matrix is a promising material for cartilage regeneration given the evidence supporting its chondroinductive character. The "raw materials" of cartilage matrix can serve as building blocks and signals for tissue regeneration. These matrices can be created by chemical or physical processing: physical methods disrupt cellular membranes and nuclei but may not fully remove all cell components and DNA, whereas chemical methods combined with physical methods are effective in fully decellularizing such materials.