Effect of keratin/PLGA scaffold on the articular cartilage tissue engineering: In vivo test

Articular cartilage that is difficult to recovery when damaged needs to tissue engineering. keratin are the intermediate filament proteins that form a dense meshwork of filaments throughout the of cells and generally expressed in particular pairs of type I and type II keratin proteins in a-specific and cellular differentiation-specific manner. In this study, we are developing an alternative approach that consists of generating chondrocytes anchored to poly(L-lactide-co-glycolide)(PLGA) scaffolds impregnated keratin(keratin/PLGA) using tissue-engineering principles. We prepared PLGA and keratin/PLGA scaffolds using solvent casting/salt leaching method. Chondrocytes were isolated from the articular cartilage of New Zealand white rabbit and cultured With DMEM/Ham's F-12 supplemented with 10 % FBS, 1 % penicillin streptomycin, 200 mM L-glutamin, 50 μg/ml of ascorbic acid and 15 mM HEPES buffer 1M. After 2weeks of cell seeding, we implanted keratin /PLGA scaffolds on the back of nude mice. Morphological observation, histology, biological assay for collagen and sGAG, and PCR were performed at each time point 1, 2, 3 and 6 weeks. The cell viability and the quantity of collagen and sGAG were better keratin/PLGA scaffolds than PLGA scaffolds. Specific mRNA, type II and type I collagen, for chondrocyte expressed significantly highly in keratin/PLGA scaffold. keratin/PLGA scaffold promotes in vivo chondrocyte of rabbit articular chondrocytes. This study suggests that keratin/PLGA scaffold may serve as a potential cell delivery vehicle and a structural basis for in vivo tissue engineered articular cartilage.