The meniscus plays an important role for the development of osetoathritis in the knee. The regeneration of meniscal tissue after trauma but also chronic cartilage damage is a great problem for medicine because the self-renewal capacity of the cartilage is very limited. This research shows that the human meniscus of patients which were suffering from severe osteoarthritis harbors a unique progenitor cell population (MPCs). In vitro these cells are able to migrate, form colonies and proliferate. The MPCs show mesenchymal stem cell characteristics and are multipotent. The cells can be found in all zones of the osteoarthritic meniscus.
