Acellular osteochondral scaffold combined with autologous MSCs repair goat osteochondral defects

Objective Observe the repairing effect of acellular osteochondral scaffold,which was seeded with mesenchymal stem cells(MSCs),and was implanted in animal osteochondral defect model and to find a new way to repair osteochondral defect.Methods Osteochondral defects was prepared in weight bearing area of goat.The goats were separated into scaffold-cell group,scaffold group and blank-control group.Osteochondral scaffold was cross-linked with porous acellular cartilage matrix,seeded with BMSCs,and implanted in animal osteochondral defect model of scaffold-cell group.Pure scaffolds were implanted into scaffold group,and no repair was done in the blank-control group.The animals were sacrificed three months after the operation and the specimens had gross and histological evaluation.The effect of cartilage formation,cell biology and subchondral bone changes were observed.Results Cell-scaffold composite group had better repair for osteochondral defect of weight-bearing area than scaffold group which only had subchondral bone repaired.In the blank group the defect was repaired by fibrous tissue with the cartilage degeneration in defects' edge.Conclusions Extracellular matrix osteochondral scaffold seeded with MSCs can repair osteochondral defects better in load bearing area of goat.