Arthritic diseases, such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, inflict an enormous health care burden on society. Osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease with high prevalence among older people, and rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune inflammatory disease, both lead to irreversible structural and functional damage to articular cartilage. The aim of this study was to investigate the e...

OBJECTIVES Retinoic acid (RetA) and oncostatin M (OSM) have both been shown to mediate potent effects with respect to extracellular matrix integrity. This study assesses the effects of a RetA + OSM combination on cartilage catabolism. METHODS Animal and human cartilage samples were used to assess the ability of RetA + OSM to promote the release of collagen and proteoglycan fragments, which wa...

OBJECTIVE Traumatic joint injury can initiate early cartilage degeneration in the presence of elevated inflammatory cytokines (e.g., tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interleukin (IL)-6). The positive/negative effects of post-injury dynamic loading on cartilage degradation and repair in vivo are not well-understood. This study examined the effects of dynamic strain on immature bovine cartilage ...

OBJECTIVE The specific degradation of type II collagen and aggrecan by matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9, -13 and ADAMTS-4 and -5 (aggrecanase-1 and -2) in the cartilage matrix is a critical step in pathology of osteoarthritis (OA). The aims of this study were: i) To investigate the relative contribution of ADAMTS-4 and ADAMTS-5 to cartilage degradation upon catabolic stimulation; ii) To investi...

PURPOSE The purposes of this study were to identify differences in the biomechanical and biochemical properties among the articulating surfaces of the ankle joint and to evaluate the functional and biological properties of engineered neocartilage generated using chondrocytes from different locations in the ankle joint. METHODS The properties of the different topographies within the ankle join...

Water-soluble proteinpolysaccharides, called PPL, can be extracted from bovine nucleus pulposus in yields of 45%, and from bovine nasal cartilage in yields of 37% of the dry tissue weight. From human costal cartilage only 7% can be extracted. The method used to separate PPL from each of the first two tissues into four distinct fractions separates the PPL of human costal cartilage into four frac...

Excess proteolysis of the extracellular matrix (ECM) of articular cartilage is a key characteristic of arthritis. The main enzymes involved belong to the metalloproteinase family, specifically the matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and a group of proteinases with a disintegrin and metalloproteinase domain with thrombospondin motifs (ADAMTS). Chondrocytes are the only cell type embedded in the car...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect of cartilage on nucleus pulposus (NP) tissue in an in vitro model. METHODS Cells were isolated from bovine NP or articular cartilage and allowed to form tissue in vitro. The NP tissue was grown either alone or in the presence of cartilage tissue (coculture) for up to 4 weeks and examined for histologic appearance, gene expression, and biochemical compositio...

INTRODUCTION: Contrast enhanced imaging of articular cartilage is predicated on the use of anionic contrast agents that function as mobile ionic probes that partition themselves in inverse proportion to the glycosaminoglycan (GAG) content of the cartilage matrix. GdDTPA (charge -2, 548 g/mol) has been used for delayed gadolinium enhanced magnetic resonance imaging of cartilage (dGEMRIC) and Iox...

This paper aims to characterize the wear behavior of hydrogel constructs designed for human articular cartilage replacement. To this purpose, poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) 10% w/v and gellan gum (GG) 1.5% were used reproduce superior (SUP) layer PEGDA 15% GG deep (DEEP) layer, with or without graphene oxide (GO). These materials (SUP DEEP) analyzed alone in combination mimic zonal a...