The group around Hideki TANIGUCHI has used adult elastic cartilage progenitor cells inside rudimentary cartilage to generate cartilage formation in a self-driven manner, without requiring the support of exogenous inductive factors or scaffold materials. The culture-grown 3D condensed adult–derived progenitors were amenable to storage via simple freezing methods and efficiently reconstructed 3D elastic cartilage upon transplantation.
Takanori TAKEBE et al., J Clin Invest. doi:10.1172/JCI76443
Yokohama City University Group succeeds to grow human cartilage without using matrkix nor growth factors