In the presence of cell-cell contacts (pellet cultures) Notch inhibition enhances chondrogenic differentiation as measured by Sox9 (A), Col2 (B), and ACAN (C) gene expression. After 14 and 21 days, human MSC pellet culture Sox9 (A), Col2 (B), and ACAN (C) expression is upregulated with DAPT treatment alone but reduced to negligible levels with BIO treatment (n=3; error bars represent standard error of the mean; p-value of <0.05 indicates significance compared to day 0 (*) and time matched untreated pellet). Similarly, pellet cultures treated with either BIO, or BIO and DAPT exhibited qualitatively decreased glycosaminoglycan staining as indicated by toluidine blue stained histological sections (D) (Bar = 25 µm).