Cartilage tissue engineering using human embryonic stem cells

Cartilage is the first skeletal tissue to be formed during development, and is necessary for bone formation and movement. Damage to articular cartilage can leave the sufferer with painful and limited joint mobility leading eventually to osteoarthritis (OA). There are currently a number of surgical methods to help alleviate the painful symptoms; however, these methods often leave filled lesions with mechanically inadequate tissue or result in replacement of the joint altogether. Methods to improve cartilage repair and delay the need for arthroplasty are highly sought. The generation of functional cartilage tissue using stem cells is promising to be an important advance in regenerative medicine. To progress in this field an in-depth understanding of the signals that regulate cartilage development is paramount. Although progress has been made using adult mesenchymal stem cells, these cells suffer from limited accessibility, senesce upon expansion, and clonal variability. Investigating more potent stem cells such as embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells could overcome a lot of those limitations but it also comes with its unique challenges. This article looks at the current literature on therapies available for OA, the development of cartilage, and provides an analysis of the recent attempts to use human ESCs in cartilage tissue engineering.