Growth Factors and Chondrogenic Differentiation of Adipose-Derived Stem Cells

Osteoarthritis is the result of the breakdown of articular cartilage, which often begins with a traumatic injury to the joint. The loss of cartilage leads to joint pain, stiffness, and reduced physical mobility and activity. Although joint replacement with artificial joints is currently the standard of care for osteoarthritis, there are drawbacks that limit the types of activity the patient can be involved in after surgery and other side effects that can lead to failure of the artificial joint. Infection following surgery, loss of proprioception (the ability to know where the joint is in space), and the possibility of a failure of parts of the synthetic joint that requires additional surgeries are all risks that this treatment presents.One possible alternative to total joint replacement is tissue engineering that can be used to regenerate the damaged joint. Stem cells that are differentiated into cartilage cells and reintroduced into the area or areas with cartilage defects will form cartilage tissue. The conversion of stem cells into cartilage cells (chondrocytes) can be induced through the use of growth factors, including TGF-β3, TGF-β1, BMP-2, and BMP-6. [4, 10] The differentiation of stem cells into chondrocytes will be examined with each growth factor separately as well as in combination. Safranin-O staining results will be compared to determine which growth factor or combination of growth factors most effectively converts stem cells into chondrocytes