Several plant polyphenols have been shown to reduce osteoarthritis symptoms due to their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties. We investigated the effects of two different polyphenolic extracts (Belinal, Pycnogenol) and two different polyphenols (resveratrol, quercetin) on the chondrogenic potential of bone-derived mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) from healthy donors and patients with osteoarthritis. Our main aim was to determine whether Belinal, a commercially available polyphenolic extract from silver fir (Abies alba L.) branches, has comparable chondrogenic potential with the other tested extract and the polyphenols under inflammatory and non-inflammatory conditions. In our study, Belinal promoted significantly greater chondrogenesis compared to the untreated (p = 0.0289) and resveratrol-treated (p = 0.0468) MSCs from patients with hip osteoarthritis under non-inflammatory conditions. Under inflammatory conditions, chondrogenesis was significantly enhanced for MSCs treated with Belinal compared to the control (p = 0.0483). The other extract and the polyphenols did not show any significant effects on chondrogenesis under non-inflammatory or inflammatory conditions. None of the tested extracts and polyphenols showed significant effects on chondrogenesis in healthy donors, under either non-inflammatory or inflammatory conditions. Our data show that Belinal can boost the chondrogenesis of MSCs derived from patients with osteoarthritis, under both non-inflammatory and inflammatory conditions.
Keywords: chondrogenesis; inflammation; mesenchymal stem/stromal cells; osteoarthritis; polyphenols; subchondral bone.