Abstract

It is well documented that adult cartilage has minimal self-repair ability. Current methods for treatment of cartilage injury focus on the relief of pain and inflammation and have met with limited long-term success. In the forefront of new therapeutic approaches, autologous chondrocyte transplantation is still only applied to a very small percentage of the patient population. Our laboratory has focused on cartilage repair using progenitor cells and studied their differentiation into cartilage. Adult mesenchymal stem cells are an attractive candidate as progenitor cells for cartilage repair because of their documented osteogenic and chondrogenic potential, ease of harvest, and ease of expansion in culture; furthermore, their use will obviate the need for harvesting precious healthy cartilage from a patient to obtain autologous chondrocytes for transplantation. However, the need to induce chondrogenic differentiation in the mesenchymal stem cells is superposed on other technical issues associated with cartilage repair; this adds a level of complexity over using mature chondrocytes. This chapter focuses on the methods involved in the isolation of human mesenchymal stem cells and their differentiation along the chondrogenic lineage. Although we have the technology to accomplish chondrogenic differentiation of stem cells, much is still to be learned regarding the regulatory mechanisms controlling the lineage transitions and maturation of the cartilaginous tissue.