In vitro construction of bionic tissue engineering cartilage and repair goat knee cartilage injury. Use of histological staining, mechanical analysis, ultrasound elastography examination, evaluation of the repair effect of this method, and the feasibility of noninvasive ultrasound evaluation.

12 male goats were randomly divided into A, B, C three groups. Group A: two in blank control group. The knee weight-bearing area was 6 mm in diameter, with a full-thickness cartilage defect. Group B: four goats, Only bionic cartilage scaffold was implanted in the defect of the Weight-bearing area of the femoral condyle. Group C: six goats used the Bionic cartilage scaffolds were combined with autologous bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells was implanted in the defect of the Weight-bearing area of the femoral condyle. BM-SCs were isolated from bone marrow blood and cultured. When the concentration of cells reached 1×10⁷ cells/ml, they were load in to the bionic cartilage scaffold. The constructed bionic tissue engineering cartilage was implanted into the femoral condyle cartilage defect. In each group, the goat was made in the left knee first, then in the right knee three months after the operation, and then in the right knee three months after the operation, the ultrasonic examination was first, and then the gross score, pathological staining, GAG content determination and mechanical detection.

In group A, there was no cartilage repair at there and six months. The results of gross score, pathological score, GAG content and mechanical detection showed that group C was better than group B (P<0.05), Moreover, in group B and group C, the 6 month group was better than the 3 month group (P<0.05). In group C, the 6 month group was closer to the normal cartilage tissue. The results of repair gross morphology and indentation test were consistent with those of ultrasonic elastography.

Using tissue engineering to construct bionic cartilage to treat early cartilage injury has a reliable therapeutic effect, and with the participation of autologous bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells can achieve better repair effect. The recovery period of cartilage injury after bionic cartilage repair is more than 6 months. Ultrasound elastography can be used as a simple, rapid and effective method to evaluate the recovery effect of cartilage transplantation.

Ultrasonography; Elasticity imaging techniques; Cartilage; Tissue engineering; Bionic scaffold