EVALUATION OF THE POTENCIAL OF NOVEL HYDROGELS BASED ON CARRAGEENAN WITH ENCASPULATED ADIPOSE DERIVED STEM CELLS FOR CARTILAGE TISSUE ENGINEERING

Cartilage tissue engineering approaches present a high potential of application in the repair of articular defects, where currently available therapies are not very successful. The use of injectable hydrogels for cell delivery in cartilage regeneration therapies have attracted more and more attention because of their promising advantages over pre-formed scaffolds. Temperature-dependent natural biopolymer kcarrageenan hydrogel has been investigated as a new cell delivery vehicle. Biological tests were performed using these hydrogels to encapsulate human adipose derived stem cells (hASCs) in order to evaluate their ability to maintain cells viability and proliferation. Furthermore, we examined the phenotype profile of hASCs in differentiated and undifferentiated state using RT-PCR to analyse the expression of specific cartilage markers (SOX-9, Col II, Col I, Col X, Aggrecan -) and immunohistochemical analysis (Col II and Col I immunolocalization). The results indicated that k-carrageenan hydrogels showed good cellular viability and proliferation after 21 days of culture and the constructs showed to be positive for specific cartilage markers. Based on this data, the feasibility of using k-carrageenan gel as a stem cell carrier vehicle and as potential injectable systems, due to its biocompatibility, gelling properties and ability to maintain viability and induce chondrogenic differentiation of encapsulated cells has been demonstrated.