Thermally-reversible gel for 3-D cell culture of chondrocytes.

Regeneration of destroyed articular cartilage can be induced by transplantation of cartilage cells into a defect. The best results are obtained by the use of autologus cells. However, obtaining large amounts of autologus cartilage cells causes a problem of creating a large cartilage defect in a donor site. Techniques are currently being developed to harvest a small number of cells and propagate them in vitro. It is a challenging task, however, due to the fact that ordinarily, in a cell culture on flat surfaces, chondrocytes do not maintain their in vivo phenotype and irreversibly diminish or cease the synthesis of the phenotypic markers for articular chondrocytes. Therefore, the research is continuing to develop culture conditions for chondrocytes with the preserved phenotype. We have investigated the use of thermoreversible gelling polymer based on N-isopropylacrylamide for the in vitro cell culture of chondrocytes.