Abstract
Cartilage tissues possess an extremely limited capacity for self-repair, and current clinical surgical approaches for treating articular cartilage defects can only provide short-term relief. Despite significant advances in the field of cartilage tissue engineering, avoiding secondary damage caused by invasive surgical procedures remains a challenge. In this study, injectable cartilage microtissues were developed through 3D culture of rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) within porous gelatin microcarriers (GMs) and induced differentiation. These microtissues were then injected for the purpose of treating cartilage defects in vivo, via a minimally invasive approach. GMs were found to be noncytotoxic and favorable for cell attachment, proliferation and migration evaluated with BMSCs. Moreover, cartilage microtissues with a considerable number of cells and abundant extracellular matrix components were obtained from BMSC-laden GMs after induction differentiation culture for 28 days. Notably, ATDC5 cells were complementally tested to verify that the GMs were conducive to cell attachment, proliferation, migration and chondrogenic differentiation. The microtissues obtained from BMSC-laden GMs were then injected into articular cartilage defect areas in rats and achieved superior performance in alleviating inflammation and repairing cartilage. These findings suggest that the use of injectable cartilage microtissues in this study may hold promise for enhancing the long-term outcomes of cartilage defect treatments while minimizing the risk of secondary damage associated with traditional surgical techniques.