Tissue Engineering of Cartilage using Periosteum

关节软骨是一种非常耐用的组织，它覆盖着我们关节和关节中的关节骨面 通过极大地减少骨骼之间的摩擦和分布压力，允许无痛运动。不幸的是， 当软骨因损伤或疾病受损时，它的愈合能力有限，可能会导致早产。 关节炎。关节炎是一个主要的健康问题，预计随着人口老龄化，这种问题将会增加。因此，有 对修复或重建受损关节软骨的技术开发有相当大的兴趣。 就患者数量而言，一种成功的软骨修复方法的意义将是巨大的 以及他们的生活质量。重要的是，在这个医疗费用不断攀升的时代，成功的软骨 修复将减少与关节置换和多次翻修相关的长期医疗费用 其中之一。我们的长期目标是开发一种用于软骨修复的组织工程学方法 骨膜。骨膜移植有可能满足三种组织需求中的每一种。 工程(支架、细胞、生长因子)，并已成功地用于生物表面处理 修复受损的关节软骨。骨膜组织移植使用需要克服的主要障碍 对于组织工程学来说，随着患者年龄的增加，骨膜的软骨形成潜力不断下降。 我们推测，骨膜下注射特定的生长因子可以作为一种预防 “激活”骨膜用于关节软骨组织工程。从本质上讲，工程化组织将是 在体内为移植做准备。在这个方案中，我们计划检查骨膜下的可能性。 注射已知的软骨生长因子以增加(1)成软骨前体细胞的数量 活体骨膜(Aim 1)，(2)体外骨膜成软骨潜能(Aim 2)和(3)骨膜 骨膜修复关节软骨缺损的潜力(目标3)。除了关节软骨修复，这些 研究有可能影响骨膜在其他方面的应用，如组织工程 骨头。此外，通过消除对细胞培养扩展设施和专业知识的需求，这一成本 方法应该少得多，从而使软骨修复更容易在全球范围内进行。

Articular cartilage is the remarkably durable tissue that covers the articulating bone surfaces in our joints and permits pain-free movement by greatly reducing friction between bones and distributing stress. Unfortunately, when cartilage is damaged due to injury or disease, it has a limited capacity to heal and can lead to premature arthritis. Arthritis is a major health issue that is predicted to increase as our population ages. As such, there is considerable interest in the development of techniques to repair or reconstruct damaged articular cartilage. The implications of a successful method for cartilage repair would be great in terms of the number of patients affected and their quality of life. Importantly, in this era of escalating health care costs, successful cartilage repair would decrease the long-term costs of health care related to joint replacement and multiple revisions thereof. Our long-term objective is to develop a tissue engineering approach for cartilage repair using periosteum. Periosteal grafts have the potential to contribute to each of the three requirements for tissue engineering (scaffold, cells, growth factors), and have been used successfully in biological resurfacing for the repair of damaged articular cartilage. The principle obstacle to overcome for the use of periosteal tissue grafts for tissue engineering is the declining chondrogenic potential of periosteum with increasing age of the patient. We hypothesize that subperiosteal injection of specific growth factors can be used as a pretreatlnent to "activate" periosteum for articular cartilage tissue engineering. In essence, the engineered tissue will be prepared in vivo for transplantation. In this proposal, we plan to examine the potential for subperiosteal injection of known chondrogenic growth factors to enhance (1) the number of chondrogenic precursor cells in periosteum in vivo (Aim 1), (2) the in vitro chondrogenic potential of periosteum (Aim 2) and (3) the potential of periosteum to repair articular cartilage defects (Aim 3). Beyond articular cartilage repair, these studies have the potential to impact the use of periosteum for other applications such as tissue engineering of bone. In addition, by eliminating the need for cell culture expansion facilities and expertise, the cost of this approach should be considerably less thereby making cartilage repair more globally accessible.