The poor ability of articular cartilage to repair following disease and injury makes the tissue a key target for reparative and regenerative medicine strategies. It has been shown that human knee joint resides under hypoxic conditions. Oxygen tension in healthy human synovium is between 7 and 11% and in articular cartilage may therefore be as low as 1–2.5% [1].
Low oxygen tension potentiates proliferation and stemness but not multilineage differentiation of caprine male germline stem cells