Tissue- and Cell-Level Inhomogeneities Significantly Alter the Mechanical Behavior of Tissue-Engineered Cartilage

The insufficient load-bearing capacity of today’s tissue engineered (TE) cartilage is an important limiting factor for its clinical application. It is believed that the mechanical quality of TE cartilage constructs would be optimal if it had both a structure and composition resembling native cartilage. Cartilage TE studies therefore aim to reach extracellular matrix (ECM) content that resembles that of native tissue. However, the correlation between ECM content and mechanical properties of TE constructs is not unique and the correlation between matrix content and mechanical properties vary considerably.