Final Activity Report Summary - CELLUCART (Cellular cartilage instruction)
This project has established the optimal cell sources for a new single surgery cartilage repair therapy. These are a combination of bone marrow and articular cartilage derived cells which in contact with each other, stimulate cartilage formation and thus are expected to enhance repair. The project has further succeeded in identifying key mechanistic features of this cell synergy based enhancement of cartilage formation, namely that i) bone marrow cells promote proliferation of articular chondrocytes, and that, ii) articular chondrocytes promote survival of bone marrow as well as enhance cartilage formation of articular chondrocytes.