An ex vivo human cartilage repair model to evaluate the potency of a cartilage cell transplant

Table 1 Ranking of donors according to regeneration capacity compared to the ranking of aggrecan protein expression and GAG ratio in co-cultures cultivated for 12 weeks

Donor ID	Area of regenerated tissue ± SD (%)	Area of regenerated tissue (ranking)	ACAN protein by IHC (ranking)	GAG_{bound/released} (ranking)
#11	29.76 ± 3.92	14	7	8
#8	23.96 ± 14.63	11	14	5
#9	24.16 ± 9.15	11	12	14
#10	22.60 ± 7.17	11	7	3
#6	21.78 ± 5.05	10	10	9
#16	20.91 ± 5.13	10	10	3
#5	20.32 ± 10.30	9	14	12
#13^a	15.82 ± 7.63	7	5	14
#18^a, ^b	16.73 ± 3.39	7	5	1
#17	12.83 ± 0.53	5	7	8
#7	10.59 ± 2.80	4	5	3
#15^a	7.68 ± 1.17	3	7	1
#12	5.37 ± 2.61	2	10	1
#14^a, ^b	3.41 ± 1.91	1	1	5

Shown is the comparison between the ranks of regeneration of each donor sample (ID) and the ranks of ACAN protein expression and GAG ratio in spheroids before implantation. The samples are ranked according to their level of tissue regeneration as percentage of defect filling. Assignment of ranks of ACAN protein expression as analysed by IHC analysis was based on presence of ACAN positive areas within spheroids where largest positive areas were assigned to the highest rank (14) and absence of ACAN protein was assigned to lowest rank (1). The results of the GAG ratio and their assigned rank are also indicated. Ratios >1.0 indicated that the GAG content bound within spheroids is larger than in media and ratios <1.0 indicates that the GAG content bound within spheroids is less than in media. High GAG ratios were assigned to high GAG ranks (rank: 10–14), low GAG ratios were assigned to low ranks (rank 1–4)
^aSamples derived from the manufacturing department
^bThe duration of cultivation of spheroids until characterisation was 14 ± 1 days, except for donor #14 and #18, which were derived from the manufacturing department and obtained after culturing for 24 days

ISSN: 1479-5876