Segmental characterization of the cellular density of human knee meniscus

Cellularity varies within the human meniscus, specifically between avascular and vascular parts of the meniscus, but also between anterior, medial and posterior parts. The aim of this study is to calculate the 3D cell density of human meniscus using histological slides. Histological samples with known thickness are identified based on their anatomical location: anterior, medial and posterior. Each histological sample has two areas to be checked: avascular and vascular part. For the cell counting, cells will be identified either as chondrocytes or non-chondrocytes. The initial results show that the 3D cell density is around 8000 cells/mm3 in vascular part that is the almost double of the density in avascular part. Chondrocytes take up more than the half of the total cell amount in avascular part, and less than the half in the vascular part. Besides, the results obtained from different meniscus taken from donors with different age and gender provides further information. This on-going work contributes to the knowledge of cellularity of human meniscus and facilitates the development of more efficient strategies for meniscus tissue engineering. The authors thank the financial support of the MultiScale-
Human project (Contract number: MRTN-CT-2011-289897) in the
Marie Curie Actions—Initial Training Networks.