Nondestructive assessment of tissue engineered cartilage based on biochemical markers in cell culture media: application of attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy.

Tissue engineering of cartilage for tissue repair has many challenges, including the inability to assess when the developing construct has reached compositional maturity for implantation. The goal of this study was to provide a novel analytical approach to nondestructively assess tissue engineered cartilage (TEC) during development. We applied attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy to establish a quick and straightforward method to evaluate consumption of glucose and secretion of the metabolite lactate in the culture media, processes that are associated with tissue development.

DMOG Negatively Impacts Tissue Engineered Cartilage Development.

Objective: Articular cartilage exists in a hypoxic environment, which motivates the use of hypoxia-simulating chemical agents to improve matrix production in cartilage tissue engineering. The aim of this study was to investigate whether dimethyloxalylglycine (DMOG), a HIF-1α stabilizer, would improve matrix production in 3-dimensional (3D) porcine synovial-derived mesenchymal stem cell (SYN-MSC) co-culture with chondrocytes.

Design: Pellet cultures and scaffold-based engineered cartilage were grown to determine the impact of chemically simulated hypoxia on 2 types of 3D cell culture.