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. 2021 Jun 29;13(7):983. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics13070983

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© 2021 by the authors.

Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Hierarchical structure, composition, and properties of the native osteochondral (OC) unit. (a) Schematic illustration of the OC unit. This multi-tissue region can be divided into three major layers: articular cartilage (AC), which consists of hyaline cartilage tissue; calcified cartilage, which marks the transition from soft cartilage to stiff subchondral bone (SB); and SB, which can be divided into two anatomically distinct layers, the SB plate (cortical-like bone) and the subarticular spongiosa (trabecular-like bone). AC can itself be split into four sublayers based on collagen fibre alignment, proteoglycan composition and chondrocyte number and morphology. From top to bottom, these are the superficial zone, the middle zone, the deep zone, and the calcified zone. Created with BioRender.com (accessed on 30 March 2021). (b) Representative histological image of the OC unit. Adapted from [84] with permission from Elsevier. Copyright © 2009, Elsevier Ltd.