Different approaches of engineering cartilage to treat defects in the articulating surfaces of the joints have been designed, which mainly use mesenchymal stem cells or autologous chondrocytes for in situ transplantation. However, these cells are poorly characterized with respect to viability, degree of differentiation and morphology or production of extracellular matrix. At present, one of the key approaches to generate chondrocytes is the stimulation of stem cells with transforming growth factor (TGF) β1. To characterize the molecular alterations occuring during the cellular transformation induced by TGF-β1 exposure, the differentiation process of bone marrow-derived stem cells into chondrocytes was investigated using an in vitro chondrogenesis model and the RNA arbitrarily primed PCR (RAP-PCR) fingerprinting technique. Distinct genes were found to be differentially regulated during chondrocyte development beginning on day 1: collagen type I, non-muscle myosin MYH9, followed by manganese superoxide dismutase and sodium-potassium ATPase on day 7. The results suggest that using RAP-PCR for differential display fingerprinting is a useful tool to investigate the differentiation process of bone marrow-derived stem cells following TGF-β1-stimulation.

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