Cartilage degeneration represents a serious health problem, causing progressive debilitation and marked decrease of quality of life. Cartilage damages occur as a consequence of congenital abnormalities, diseases and traumas, and are related to the limited intrinsic healing potential of this tissue. Because of the lack of blood supply and subsequent insufficient inflammatory response, lesions to cartilage result in an incomplete repairing attempt by local chondrocytes leading to mechanically inadequate resident fibrocartilage formation. During the past decade tissue engineering procedures have been widely studied for the treatment of articular cartilage damages, exploiting the basic knowledge gained in the fields of cell and molecular biology and the advances of biomaterial research.

A new bioactive scaffold has been prepared from a binary polysaccharide mixture (AC-mixture) composed of a polyanion (alginate) and a polycation (a lactose-modified chitosan, chitlac) and its potential use for articular chondrocytes encapsulation and cartilage reconstructive surgery applications has been studied. The hydrogel combines the ability of alginate to provide for a supporting structure with the capability of the second component (chitlac) to directly interact with porcine articular chondrocytes. Physico-chemical characterisation of the scaffold was accomplished by gel kinetics and compression measurements and demonstrated that AC-mixture hydrogels exhibit improved mechanical properties when compared with sole alginate hydrogels. Furthermore, biochemical and biological studies showed that these 3D-scaffolds are able to maintain chondrocyte phenotype and particularly to significantly stimulate and promote chondrocyte growth and proliferation. In conclusion, the present study can be considered as a first step towards an engineered biologically active scaffold for chondrocyte in vitro cultivation, expansion and cell delivery.

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