In this experimental study, the effect of three different growth factors, Transforming growth factor a (TGFa), Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) was evaluated on the proliferation of two different populations of human meniscal fibrochondrocytes. Using 16 menisci from 4 New Zeeland White rabbits, first the behavior of menisci in the tissue culture was investigated. The rabbit menisci were harvested, cultured in vitro and histologically analyzed after 1,2,3 and 4 weeks with a double-staining procedure. The new established double-staining, performed with MTT (tatrazolium salt) and Ethidium bromid, enabled the differentiation between vital and avital cells in the histological specimen. The experiment demonstrated that, under in vitro conditions, the superficial cells completely move out of the menisci, while the cells from the deep layers stay in the meniscal tissue. These new findings were used in the second part of the experiment to separate superficial and deep fibrochondrocytes from 6 human meniscal biopsies (2 women, 4 men with irreparable meniscal bucket-handle lesions, mean age 34 years). After 4 weeks in tissue culture, the superficial cells were sampled from the well plates and the deep fibrochondrocytes were extracted from the meniscal tissue. The cells were then cultured in the second passage, placed in a serumless medium and incubated with the growth factors TGFa, VEGF and IGF-1 in 6 different concentrations (0, 0.01, 0.1, 1, 10 and 100 ng/ml). The cell counts were performed with Coulter counter after 96 h. The proliferation of the superficial and deep human fibrochondrocytes was significantly enhanced by TGFa. The mitogenic effect of VEGF was shown only for the population of the deep fibrochondrocytes while IGF-1 had no significant effect on the human meniscal cells. For the first time, differentiation of meniscal cells from different regions of the meniscus was possible due to their mitotic activity.
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In this experimental study, the effect of three different growth factors, Transforming growth factor a (TGFa), Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) was evaluated on the proliferation of two different populations of human meniscal fibrochondrocytes. Using 16 menisci from 4 New Zeeland White rabbits, first the behavior of menisci in the tissue culture was investigated. The rabbit menisci were harvested, cultured in vitro and histologically analyzed aft...
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