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Regenerative medicine

Skin and bones (and cartilage): the dermal fibroblast connection

New research reports that primary human dermal fibroblasts seeded into a three-dimensional biodegradable matrix can differentiate in vitro into osteoblasts and chondrocytes, and form three-dimensional bone-like and cartilage-like constructs, respectively. Is skeletal tissue engineering from skin biopsy tissue on the horizon?

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Figure 1: Application of adult MSCs to tissue engineering, illustrated by several approaches to articular cartilage repair.

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Correspondence to Rocky S. Tuan.

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Tuan, R. Skin and bones (and cartilage): the dermal fibroblast connection. Nat Rev Rheumatol 5, 471–472 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrrheum.2009.170

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