AUTHOR=Tassey Jade , Sarkar Arijita , Van Handel Ben , Lu Jinxiu , Lee Siyoung , Evseenko Denis TITLE=A Single-Cell Culture System for Dissecting Microenvironmental Signaling in Development and Disease of Cartilage Tissue JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology VOLUME=9 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cell-and-developmental-biology/articles/10.3389/fcell.2021.725854 DOI=10.3389/fcell.2021.725854 ISSN=2296-634X ABSTRACT=
Cartilage tissue is comprised of extracellular matrix and chondrocytes, a cell type with very low cellular turnover in adults, providing limited capacity for regeneration. However, in development a significant number of chondrocytes actively proliferate and remodel the surrounding matrix. Uncoupling the microenvironmental influences that determine the balance between clonogenic potential and terminal differentiation of these cells is essential for the development of novel approaches for cartilage regeneration. Unfortunately, most of the existing methods are not applicable for the analysis of functional properties of chondrocytes at a single cell resolution. Here we demonstrate that a novel 3D culture method provides a long-term and permissive