Adopting a 3-D alginate culture system allows for a maintenance of a chondrocytic phenotype and this was supported in this study by the unaltered expression of COL2A1 and SOX9 [29].We chose tissue samples from nondiseased joints to avoid the difficulties of heterogeneity encountered in joint disease and to detect early responses in chondrocytes which may be lost in chronic, end-stage diseased cartilage. This evidence concerns the gene SOX9 and arthropathy.