Tissue-engineered repair of osteochondral defects: effects of the age of donor cells and host tissue.

Transplantation of a tissue-engineered construct containing cells of a chondrocytic phenotype into an osteochondral defect provides a biological solution to this type of injury. Among the factors that affect cell proliferation and phenotypic expression, age is one that has not been well characterized. In this study adult and aged male donor cells, derived from perichondrium, were cultured and adsorbed into a polylactic acid (PLA) scaffold and transplanted into osteochondral defects created in adult (8- to 10-month-old) and aged (4- to 5-year-old) female rabbits. Three groups were investigated: (1) adult cells transplanted into aged defects, (2) aged cells transplanted into aged defects, and (3) aged cells transplanted into adult defects. In vitro characterization of adult and aged cells and in vivo assessment of osteochondral repair tissue at 12 weeks posttransplantation were carried out. The in vitro studies demonstrated that the proliferation rate of aged cells was less than that of mature cells during ...