Cartilage tissue engineering: intraarticular adipose stromal cells promote chondrocyte attachment on silk fibroin scaffold

Abstract

Articular cartilage has limited repair and regeneration potential; the scarcity of treatment modalities has motivated attempts to engineer cartilage tissue constructs. The use of chondrocytes in cartilage tissue engineering has been restricted by the limited availability of these cells, their intrinsic tendency to lose their phenotype during the expansion, as well as the difficulties during the first cell adhesion to the scaffold. Aim of this work was to evaluate the attachment of adipose stromal vascular fraction from human Hoffa's Body knee fat on silk fibroin scaffold as a strategy for increasing chondrocyte adhesion and proliferation. Results show that silk fibroin scaffold allows cell attachment and scaffold colonization; moreover, adipose-derived stromal vascular fraction cells promote chondrocyte adhesion.