Analysis of Musculoskeletal Systems and Their Diseases. Regulation of chondrogenesis and cartilage regeneration by molecular and developmental biology

: In decades, the signaling pathways that regulate chondrogenesis and the differentiation of chondrocytes have been identified. Molecular biological understanding of the commitment of mesenchymal cells to the chondrogenic lineage, which leads to endochondral bone formation, is necessary to understand pathophysiology of bone/cartilage metabolic diseases and cartilage degenerative diseases. In this review, we show how multiple growth factors and signaling molecules are integrated to activate a series of transcription factors in connection with morphological cell features, which regulates chondrogenesis and chondrocyte differentiation.