Isolation, identification, and comparison of cartilage stem progenitor/cells from auricular cartilage and perichondrium.

Auricular cartilage loss or defect remains a challenge to plastic surgeons, and cartilage regenerative medicine provides a novel method to solve the problem. However, ideal seeding cells seem to be the key point in the development of cartilage regeneration. Although bone marrow-mesenchymal stem cells were considered as the ideal seeding cells in cartilage regeneration, regenerative cartilage differentiated from bone marrow-mesenchymal stem cells still faces some problems. It is reported that many tissues and organs contain a certain number of adult progenitor or stem cells that can replace cells that die or restore tissues and organs after injury. Therefore, we tried to use a fibronectin differential adhesion assay to isolate cartilage stem/progenitor cells from auricular cartilage and perichondrium. Flow cytometric analysis demonstrated the two cell populations expressed mesenchyme stem cell positive surface marker. Meanwhile, the cells differentiate into osteogenic line, chondrogenic line and adipogenic line under different induction conditions. The proliferation of cartilage stem/progenitor cells derived from perichondrium was higher than cartilage stem/progenitor cells derived from auricular cartilage. In addition, there is a difference on osteogenic differentiation, chondrogenic differentiation and adipogenic differentiation between these two cell populations. In conclusion, auricular cartilage and perichondrium both contain cartilage stem/progenitor cells, which may provide an ideal seeding cells for cartilage regeneration.