Abstract
Treatment of defects of articullar cartilage remains a problem in orthopedic surgery because cartilage has little self-healing capability. Recently a new approach for repair of articular cartilage has appeared using tissue engineering to create cartilage-like tissues in a three-dimensional scaffolding with autologous chondrocytes. However, the number of autologous chondrocytes for autograft is limited. To solve this problem, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) sourced from bone marrow have been investigated as candidates for producing chondrocytes. One of the possible sources may be the placenta thrown away as a medical waste after the collection of cord blood. In this report, we determined the potential of chondrogenic differentiation of mesenchymal progenitor cells derived from chorionic villi of fetal human placenta (PDMSCs). Our results show that PDMSCs include cells which have chondrogenic differentiation potential and may serve as an alternative source of cells for repair of articular cartilage.
