Forward programming human induced pluripotent stem cells into chondrocytes by forced expression of SOX9

人诱导多能干细胞（hipsc）在软骨再生医学中具有很高的吸引力，因为它们可以以潜在的无限量自主衍生，并且包含产生稳定透明软骨的固有能力。目前，尚无诱导hipsc成软骨分化的标准策略，并且大多数提出的方法要么效率低，要么非常费力，从而削弱了它们在再生医学中的适用性。本项目将通过基因修饰将hipsc直接诱导成软骨细胞。这种正向编程有望通过绕过hiPSC多阶段分化的复杂调控网络，大大简化hiPSC的软骨形成。该项目的目的是从hiPSCs中生成高质量的软骨，该软骨符合代表当前金标准的人类自体软骨细胞设定的高质量标准。

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are highly attractive for cartilage regenerative medicine, because they can be derived autologously in potentially unlimited amounts and comprise the inherent capacity to give rise to stable hyaline cartilage. Currently, there is no standard strategy to induce chondrogenic differentiation of hiPSCs, and the majority of proposed methods suffer from either low efficiency or are enormously laborious, thus impairing their applicability for regenerative medicine. In this project, hiPSCs will be directly induced into chondrocytes by genetic modification. This forward programming promises to considerably simplify hiPSC chondrogenesis by circumventing the complex regulatory networks of multistage hiPSC differentiation. Aim of this project is to generate high-quality cartilage from hiPSCs that meets the high quality standards set by human autologous chondrocytes that represent the current gold standard.