胚胎干细胞向成骨、软骨细胞定向分化研究进展

骨、软骨组织工程的热点之一是寻找合适的种子细胞.胚胎干细胞因具有全能性和无限增殖的能力有望成为组织工程中的种子细胞新来源.主要介绍了胚胎干细胞定向诱导分化为成骨、软骨细胞研究所取得的进展,并展望了胚胎干细胞作为组织工程种子细胞的前景和所面临的困难.

Progress in the study on osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation of embryonic stem cells

One of the focuses in bone and cartilage tissue engineering research is to find suitable seed cells. Embryonic stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of blastocysts possess unique characteristics such as unlimit- ed capacity of proliferation and the potential to differentiate into diverse cell types (pluripotentiality), which make them a promising cell source for tissue engineering. In this paper, the progress in the study on embryonic stem cell differentiating directly into osteoblasts and chondrocytes is introduced. The prospects and difficulties of using em- bryonic stem cells as seed cells for tissue engineering are also discussed.