Modeling appendicular skeletal cartilage development with modified high-density micromass cultures of adult human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal progenitor cells

Background Animal cell-based systems have been critical tools in understanding tissue development and physiology, but they are less successful in more practical tasks, such as predicting human toxicity to pharmacological or environmental factors, in which the congruence between in vitro and clinical outcomes lies on average between 50 and 60%. Emblematic of this problem is the high-density micromass culture of embryonic limb bud mesenchymal cells, derived from chick, mouse, or rat. While estimated predictive value of this model system in toxicological studies is relatively high, important failures prevent its use by international regulatory agencies for toxicity testing and policy development. A likely underlying reason for the poor predictive capacity of animal-based culture models is the small but significant physiological differences between species. This deficiency has inspired investigators to develop more organotypic, 3-dimensional culture system using human cells to model normal tissue development and physiology and assess pharmacological and environmental toxicity. Methods We have developed a modified, miniaturized micromass culture model using adult human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal progenitor cells (hBM-MPCs) that is amenable to moderate throughput and high content analysis to study chondrogenesis. The number of cells per culture was reduced, and a methacrylated gelatin (gelMA) overlay was incorporated to normalize the morphology of the cultures. Results These modified human cell-based micromass cultures demonstrated robust chondrogenesis, indicated by increased Alcian blue staining and immunodetectable production of collagen type II and aggrecan, and stage-specific chondrogenic gene expression. In addition, in cultures of hBM-MPCs transduced with a lentiviral collagen type II promoter-driven GFP reporter construct, levels of GFP reporter activity correlated well with changes in endogenous collagen type II transcript levels, indicating the feasibility of non-invasive monitoring of chondrogenesis. Conclusions The modified hBM-MPC micromass culture system described here represents a reproducible and controlled model for analyzing mechanisms of human skeletal development that may later be applied to pharmacological and environmental toxicity studies.