Room Temperature Storage of Cultured Human Articular Chondrocytes

Cell therapy requires proper techniques to store cells in good viability conditions. Liquid nitrogen containers may store cells indefinitely, but samples may suffer cross-contamination or bacterial contamination when they are manipulated. Cultured human chondrocytes are commonly employed in cell therapy. In this study, we show a simple system to store them at room temperature. We investigated 12 strains of cultured chondrocytes. First, we studied four strains, which were stored in different conditions. Later, we studied the other eight strains, which were maintained in the optimal viability condition obtained from the first experiment (room temperature with DMEM and HAM-F12 as maintenance medium). Using HAM-F12 as the maintenance medium, the viability after 15 days was similar to that of the control cells. After 30 days, the average viability was 87%. In both cases, cells were able to reach exponential growth when restored to 37oC. They could also synthesize specific cartilage extracellular matrices after...