The knee articular cartilage must withstand large compressive loads, providing a soft and lubricated surface in the contact between bone epiphysis. This structure smoothies knee movements and promotes adequate load distribution. Assessing the mechanical properties of the articular cartilage and understanding its healthy behavior can be a way of preventing pathological situations like osteoarthr...

1.1 Articular cartilage Articular cartilage is a specialized connective tissue that covers the ends of the bones in the diarthrodial joints. The thickness of human articular cartilage is typically between 1-6 mm. The main functions of articular cartilage are to dissipate and distribute contact stresses during joint loading, and to provide almost frictionless articulation in diarthrodial joints....

Lacking a blood supply and having a low cellular density, articular cartilage has a minimal ability for self-repair. Therefore, wide-ranging cartilage damage rarely resolves spontaneously. Cartilage damage is typically treated by chondrocyte transplantation, mosaicplasty or microfracture. Recent advances in tissue engineering have prompted research on techniques to repair articular cartilage da...

Articular cartilage has a limited capacity to heal itself and thus focal defects often result in the development of osteoarthritis. Current cartilage tissue engineering strategies seek to regenerate injured tissue by creating scaffolds that aim to mimic the unique structure and composition of native articular cartilage. Decellularization is a novel strategy that aims to preserve the bioactive f...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the knee articular cartilage is possible owing to the contrast provided by different signal intensities of adjacent menisci and subchondral bone. The objective of this study was to determine the accuracy of MRI in quantitatively detecting thinning and focal defects of articular cartilage in vivo. High resolution MRI was performed followed by dissection of the...

Articular and growth plate cartilage both arise from condensations of mesenchymal cells, but ultimately develop important histological and functional differences. Each is composed of three layers-the superficial, mid and deep zones of articular cartilage and the resting, proliferative and hypertrophic zones of growth plate cartilage. The bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) system plays an importan...

To analyze the genetic and biomolecular mechanisms underlying cartilage repair, an optimized mouse model of osteochondral repair is required. Although several models of articular cartilage injury in mice have recently been established, the articular surface in adult C57Bl/6 mice heals poorly. Since C57Bl/6 mice are the most popular strain of genetically manipulated mice, an articular cartilage ...

OBJECTIVES Recent studies have shown that systemic injection of rapamycin can prevent the development of osteoarthritis (OA)-like changes in human chondrocytes and reduce the severity of experimental OA. However, the systemic injection of rapamycin leads to many side effects. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of intra-articular injection of Torin 1, which as a specific inhi...

Eutherian mammals and saurischian dinosaurs both evolved lineages of huge terrestrial herbivores. Although significantly more saurischian dinosaurs were giants than eutherians, the long bones of both taxa scale similarly and suggest that locomotion was dynamically similar. However, articular cartilage is thin in eutherian mammals but thick in saurischian dinosaurs, differences that could have c...

introduction: although, the effect of direct intra-articular injection of bone marrow stem cells (bmscs) on the repair of articular cartilage and the effect of elaeagnus angustifolia extract on pain relief in patients with osteoarthritis have been investigated, no studies has been conducted to compare the effects of these two therapeutic methods on the mechanical properties of articular cartila...