Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Because chondrocytes are easy to dedifferentiate when they are cultured in vitro with fetal bovine serum, it is necessary to find a suitable medium to improve the quality of rabbit articular chondrocytes.
OBJECTIVE: To observe the effects of allogeneic rabbit serum on the proliferation of rabbit articular chondrocytes cultured in vitro.
METHODS: The chondrocytes were isolated from rabbit knee articular cartilage tissues with 0.4% Pronase and 0.025% collagenase Ⅱ, then equal randomly divided into two groups: the chondrocytes of the experiment group were cultured in Dulbecco's modified Eagle’s medium/Ham’s nutrient mixture F-12 containing 10% allogeneic rabbit serum, whereas the culture medium of 10% fetal bovine serum and Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium/Ham’s nutrient mixture F-12 was used in control group. After subculture, passage 4 cells were obtained.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Compared with the control group, the chondrocytes in the experiment group proliferated slowly before the 4th passage. But at the same time, the morphology of chondrocytes in the experiment group was better than that in the control group. When the chondrocytes were at the fourth passage, we found that the shape and growth of chondrocytes in the experiment group achieved better results. Meanwhile the dedifferentiated chondrocytes could be observed in the control group. The 10% allogeneic rabbit serum medium is good for maintaining the shape and proliferation of chondrocytes, so it is indicated that we can get a large number of good chondrocytes through this way.