Nasal chondrocytes

[2] The remaining cartilaginous part (characterized as hyaline cartilage) of the human nasal septum has a specific three-dimensional organization with regards to local differences in cell size and the amounts of extracellular matrix.

[6] NC can be isolated from nasal septal cartilage biopsies by enzymatic digestion using collagenase type I, II or IV (at different combination and concentration – varying from 0.15% to 0.6% –) alone or after an initial short pre-incubation phase with pronase (0.2% - 1%).

[1][14][25] Supplementation with specific growth factors (e.g., TGF-beta, IGF-1, and GDF-5) during re-differentiation has been shown to enhance the accumulation of glycosaminoglycans (GAG) and type II collagen as well as the biomechanical properties of the generated constructs.

[13][14] Additionally NC have been recently shown to exhibit features of self-renewal capability, being able to form cartilage tissue following serial cloning possibly due to their neuro-ectodermal origin.

The maturation of human NC engineered grafts has often been assessed in the subcutaneous pocket of nude mice, i.e., an environment highly vascularized and permissive to, but not inductive of, chondrogenesis.

[21][13][18][22][32][33][34] An ectopic mouse model was also used in order to test the effects of different production methods for generating large clinically relevant-sized NC-based tissue grafts.

[26] Although these models can yield insightful results, nude mice are not capable of eliciting a significant immune response, and therefore these studies cannot predict the prognosis of implanted engineered septal cartilage in an immunocompetent host.

[6] Several studies have demonstrated that NC are compatible with the environmental features typical of the injured knee (e.g., in terms of response to inflammatory molecules, mechanical loading and genetic molecular signature).