Electrospun nanofibrous meshes cultured with Wharton’s Jelly Stem Cell: an alternative for cartilage regeneration, without the need of growth factors

Many efforts are being directed worldwide to the treatment of OA-focal lesions. The majority of those efforts comprise either the refinement of surgical techniques or combinations of biomaterials with various autologous cells. Herein, we tested electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibrous meshes for cartilage tissue engineering. For that, articular chondrocytes (hACs) isolated from human osteoarthritic joints and Whartonâ s Jelly Stem Cells (hWJSCs) are cultured on electrospun nanofiber meshes, without adding external growth factors. We observed higher glycosaminoglycans production and higher overexpression of cartilage-related genes from hWJSCs cultured with basal medium, when compared to hACs isolated from osteoarthritic joints. Moreover, the presence of sulfated proteoglycans and collagen type II is observed on both types of cell cultures. We believe that this effect is due to either the electrospun nanofibers topography or the intrinsic chondrogenic differentiation potential of hWJSCs. Therefore, we propose the electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds in combination with hWJSCs as a viable alternative to the commercial membranes used in autologous chondrogenic regeneration approaches.The authors thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology for the Post-Doc grant of Marta Alves da Silva (SFRH/BPD/73322/2010, financed by POPH QREN Tipologia 4.1 – Advanced Formation, co-financed by Fundo Social Europeu and MEC national funds). This work was supported by the project SPARTAN (PTDC/CTM-BIO/4388/2014) FCT/MEC with PIDDAC funds. It was also partly supported by the POLARIS (FP7-REGPOT-2012-2013-1) and the Project “New methodologies for the isolation and control of stem cells differentiation using advanced culturing conditions and/or nanomaterials” (RL2 SCN NORTE-01-0124-FEDER-000018), co-financed by North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (ON.2 – O Novo Norte), under the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio