AGGRECAN DECREASES CHONDROCYTE HYPERTROPHY IN AN IN VIVO MODEL FOR GENERATION OF CARTILAGE OUT OF PERIOSTEUM

INTRODUCTION The generation of cartilage from progenitor cells for the purpose of cartilage repair is often hampered by unwanted hypertrophic differentiation of the generated tissue due to endochondral ossification. Continuing on our earlier studies, our goal is to further improve the engineering of hyaline cartilage for the treatment of a cartilage defect in our in vivo model for subperiosteal generation of cartilage, by tuning the differentiation status of the generated cartilage and prevent hypertrophic differentiation. As a healthy cartilage matrix contains high amounts of aggrecan we hypothesise that aggrecan supplementation of the bio-gel used in the generation of the subperiosteal cartilage, mimics the composition of the extracellular matrix environment of cartilage with potential beneficial properties for the engineered cartilage. METHODS A 2% (m/v) low melting agarose was injected between the bone and periosteum at the upper medial side of the tibia of both legs of New Zealand white rabbits (DEC ...