REVIEW article
Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Organoids and Organ-On-A-Chip
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1629608
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative Organoid Co-Culture Systems for Enhanced Precision Medicine in Cancer and BeyondView all articles
Applications in Osteochondral Organoids for Osteoarthritis Research: From Pathomimetic Modeling to Tissue Engineering Repair
Provisionally accepted
- 1College of Medical Imaging, Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China
- 2Second Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China
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Osteoarthritis (OA) is a prevalent degenerative joint disorder characterized by complex tissue interactions, featuring cartilage degradation, synovitis, and aberrant subchondral bone remodeling. Current therapies often fail to halt disease progression and typically lack comprehensive strategies targeting OA pathogenesis. Osteochondral organoids have recently emerged as innovative 3D biological models for investigating OA mechanisms and developing personalized therapies. These models recapitulate dynamic cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions within the articular microenvironment. This review evaluates progress in applying osteochondral organoids to osteoarthritis, focusing on their fabrication strategies, applications, and key challenges. It emphasizes their role in osteoarthritis modeling, drug screening, and cartilage regeneration, while exploring future directions for their development. Despite these advances, clinical translation of osteochondral organoids faces significant challenges, including standardization, vascularization, and immunomodulation. Future integration with organ-on-chip platforms, multi-omics, and AI promises to create more precise OA research models. Such integration will bridge the gap between bench research and clinical practice.
Keywords: Osteoarthritis, Osteochondral Organoids, Tissue Engineering, drug screening, 3D bioprinting, Pathomimetic Modeling, Hydrogels
Received: 16 May 2025; Accepted: 15 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jiao, Lu, Zhang and Zhen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Junping Zhen, Second Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China
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