A cell-based tissue-engineered construct can be employed for treating meniscal lesions occurring in the non-vascularized inner two-thirds. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that both pre-differentiation of human bone marrow derived stromal cells (hBMSCs) into chondrogenic lineage before cell seeding and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) pretreatment on a PLGA mesh scaffold enhances the healing capacity of the meniscus with hBMSCs-seeded scaffolds PRP of 5 donors was mixed and used for the experiments. The woven PLGA mesh scaffold (VicrylTM, Ethicon) measuring 20×8 mm (thickness, 0.2 mm) was prepared. The scaffolds were immersed into 1,000 μl of PRP and were centrifuged at 150g for 10 min. Then, the scaffold was flipped 180° and the same procedure was done for the other side. After washing, the scaffolds were soaked into 1,000 μl of DMEM media. hBMSCs from an iliac crest of 10 patients after informed consent and approval of our IRB were induced into chondrogenic differentiation with chondrogenic media containing 10 ng/ml rhTGF-ß3 in 1.2% alginate bead culture system for 7 days. Then, 2×105 hBMSCs were recovered, seeded onto the scaffold, and cultured under dynamic condition. Based on the presence of pre-differentiation into chondrogenic lineage and the PRP pretreatment, 4 study groups were prepared. (no differentiation without PRP, no differentiation with PRP, chondrogenic differentiation without PRP, chondrogenic differentiation with PRP) Cell number for each cell-seeded scaffold was determined at 24 hours after seeding. Then, scaffolds were placed between human meniscal discs and were implanted subcutaneously in nude mice for 6 weeks (n=10 per group).Background
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