Rodríguez-Pereira, CristinaLagunas, AnnaCasanellas, IgnasiVida, YolandaPérez-Inestrosa, EzequielAndrades, José ABecerra, JoséSamitier, JosepBlanco, Francisco JMagalhães, Joana2025-01-072025-01-072020-05-131996-1944https://hdl.handle.net/10668/26197Aiming to address a stable chondrogenesis derived from mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) to be applied in cartilage repair strategies at the onset of osteoarthritis (OA), we analyzed the effect of arginine-glycine-aspartate (RGD) density on cell condensation that occurs during the initial phase of chondrogenesis. For this, we seeded MSC-derived from OA and healthy (H) donors in RGD-dendrimer-poly(L-lactic) acid (PLLA) nanopatterned substrates (RGD concentrations of 4 × 10-9, 10-8, 2.5 × 10-8, and 10-2 w/w), during three days and compared to a cell pellet conventional three-dimensional culture system. Molecular gene expression (collagens type-I and II-COL1A1 and COL2A1, tenascin-TNC, sex determining region Y-box9-SOX9, and gap junction protein alpha 1-GJA1) was determined as well as the cell aggregates and pellet size, collagen type-II and connexin 43 proteins synthesis. This study showed that RGD-tailored first generation dendrimer (RGD-Cys-D1) PLLA nanopatterned substrates supported the formation of pre-chondrogenic condensates from OA- and H-derived human bone marrow-MSCs with enhanced chondrogenesis regarding the cell pellet conventional system (presence of collagen type-II and connexin 43, both at the gene and protein level). A RGD-density dependent trend was observed for aggregates size, in concordance with previous studies. Moreover, the nanopatterns' had a higher effect on OA-derived MSC morphology, leading to the formation of bigger and more compact aggregates with improved expression of early chondrogenic markers.enAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/RGD-densitycell condensationchondrogenic differentiationgap junctionsosteoarthritisresearch article32414175open access10.3390/ma13102247PMC7287591https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/13/10/2247/pdf?version=1589719189https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7287591/pdf