Osteochondral allograft transplantation is a successfully proven method to repair articular cartilage defects and prevent the degenerative effects of osteoarthritis. The number of osteochondral transplantations that can be performed each year is limited by availability of donor cartilage tissue and storage time constraints. Osteochondral transplantation success has been linked to high chondrocyte viability of the donor cartilage tissue at the time of implantation. Determining optimal storage conditions for donor cartilage is essential for tissue banks to safely provide quality cartilage tissue. In this study, we compared three tissue/cell media (DMEM/F12, RPMI-1640 and X-VIVO 10) for their ability to maintain chondrocyte viability during hypothermic storage for 28 days. Porcine osteochondral dowels were stored in each media for 28 days and cell viability was assessed every 7 days. Over the 28 day storage period, the chondrocyte viability of dowels stored in DMEM/F12, RPMI-1640, and X-VIVO 10 media all declined in a similar fashion. Our results show that all three media were equivalent in their ability to maintain cell viability of the cartilage tissue and provides rationale for the use of lower cost cell media (DMEM/F12 and RPMI-1640) for hypothermic storage of articular cartilage tissue.

同种异体骨软骨移植是一种成功的修复关节软骨缺损和预防骨关节炎退行性影响的方法。每年可以进行的骨软骨移植数量受到供体软骨组织的可用性和储存时间的限制。骨软骨移植的成功与植入时供体软骨组织的高软骨细胞活力有关。确定供体软骨的最佳储存条件对于组织库安全提供优质软骨组织至关重要。在本研究中，我们比较了三种组织/细胞培养基（DMEM/F12、RPMI-1640 和 X-VIVO 10）在低温储存 28 天期间维持软骨细胞活力的能力。将猪骨软骨销钉在每种培养基中保存 28 天，并且每 7 天评估一次细胞活力。在 28 天的储存期内，储存在 DMEM/F12、RPMI-1640 和 X-VIVO 10 培养基中的销钉的软骨细胞活力均以类似的方式下降。我们的结果表明，所有三种培养基维持软骨组织细胞活力的能力相同，并为使用较低成本的细胞培养基（DMEM/F12 和 RPMI-1640）低温储存关节软骨组织提供了理论依据。