degradation of extracellular matrix molecules in interleukin-1 alpha treated bovine nasal cartilage

background: this work aimed to show and compare the degradation time of some of cartilage extracellular matrix components using an in vitro model for cartilage degradation induced by interleukin-1 alpha. it is known that elucidation of molecular events under interleukin-1 alpha induction of bovine nasal cartilage could obtain useful data to understand more about involving mechanisms for tissue breakdown in joint disease. methods: the cartilage was taken from an adult bovine in a local slaughterhouse. after removing the whole perichondrium, the equal 2 mm diameter pieces of bovine nasal cartilage were punched out and cultured in dulbecco's modified eagle's medium dmem with or without 10 ng/ml interleukin-1 alpha for 24 days. each 3 days, the media were removed and exchanged by fresh media, and the removed media were stored in -20c. sodium dodecyl sulphate/polyacrylamid-gel electrophoresis sds-page and western-blot methods were used for analyzing the samples. results: the first fragment of fibromodulin (fm) was seen at day 6 and further fragments were appeared at day 18. cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (comp) releasing was as a successive pattern during culture period and the first fragment was found at day 6. collagen ix fragments were seen at day 9 and in a progressive pattern until the end of the study. conclusion: this study shows that fm and comp could be considered as the suitable candidates for studying the mechanisms that participate in the cartilage degradations.