STUDY OF A TISSUE-ENGINEERED CARTILAGE IMPLANT MODEL: MORPHOLOGICAL, PHYSICAL AND BIOMECHANICAL EVALUATION

The purpose of this work was to create an in vitro model of tissue-engineered cartilage structure produced by isolated swine articular chondrocytes, expanded in culture and seeded onto a biological scaffold.Swine articular chondrocytes were enzymatically isolated from pig joints and expanded in monolayer culture. When confluence was reached, cells were resuspended and seeded in vitro onto biological collagen scaffolds for 3, 4 and 6 weeks. Samples were retrieved from the culture and analysed macroscopically and biomechanically by compressive test. Gross evaluation was performed by simple probing, sizing and weighing the samples at all time periods. A baseline of the values was also recorded at time 0. Then, samples were biomechanically tested by unconfined compression and shear tests. Finally, the samples were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde and processed for histological evaluation. Some samples were stained with Safranin-o, and some others subjected to immunostaining analysis for type II collagen.Upon retr...