Effect of Transforming Growth Factor-β1 in Biological Regulation of Primary Chondrocyte

The effect of transforming growth factors-β (TGF-βs) in the regulation and control of cell growth is widely studied, but the capability of these cytokines to regulate chondrocyte cell functions such as migration, cell death, prolifera- tion, differentiation and wound repair is not clearly understood. In this work the effect of TGF-β1 on the biological regula- tion of chondrocyte was evaluated using a model wound closure assay. The experiments were carried out on primary chon- drocyte cells with fibroblast like and chondrocytic phenotypes. The cells were isolated from knee articular cartilage of five day old Sprague-Dawley neonate rats and seeded at low density to obtain a fibroblast like morphology. Chondrocytes with chondrocytic phenotype were derived by seeding at high density.The results revealed that TGF-β1 slowed down prolifera- tion and migration of cells into a model wound. It was also found that cell attachment, as determined by the detachment time during trypsinization, was greater for cells with a fibroblast like morphology when compared with cells exhibiting chondrocytic morphology. Treatment with TGF-β1 was found to increase the detachment times of fibroblast like chondro- cytes, indicating that TGF-β1enhanced cell attachment of this cell type, whilst treatment with TGF-β1 decreased detach- ment time for the chondrocytic type chondrocyte cells indicating that TGF-β1 decreased cell attachment in these cells.