OBJECTIVE Trauma-associated cartilage fractures occur in children and adolescents with clinically significant incidence. Several studies investigated biomechanical injury by compressive forces but the injury-related stress has not been investigated extensively. In this study, we hypothesized that the biomechanical stress occurring during compressive injury predetermines the biomechanical, bioch...

Glucosamine (GlcN) and glucosamine sulfate (GS) have been used to treat the patients with osteoarthritis (OA) as a disease-modifying agent. Previous in vitro studies have focused on the effects of GlcN or GS on cartilage metabolism, whereas in vivo studies have investigated their potential for the treatment of OA. Although these results have raised promises of the disease-modifying effects of G...

A bovine cartilage explant system was used to evaluate the effects of injurious compression on chondrocyte apoptosis and matrix biochemical and biomechanical properties within intact cartilage. Disks of newborn bovine articular cartilage were compressed in vitro to various peak stress levels and chondrocyte apoptotic cell death, tissue biomechanical properties, tissue swelling, glycosaminoglyca...

INTRODUCTION Previous studies have indicated that transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) signaling has a critical role in cartilage homeostasis and repair, yet the mechanisms of TGF-β's chondroprotective effects are not known. Our objective in this study was to identify downstream targets of TGF-β that could act to maintain biochemical and biomechanical properties of cartilage. METHODS Tibial j...

Introduction Cartilage is a complex tissue whose extracellular matrix mainly consists of charged proteoglycan (PG) assemblies imbedded in a fibrous collagen network. PGs attract water and repel each other due to their negative charges generating a high swelling pressure. Collagens are proteins that form the fibrillar meshwork providing cartilage with its tensile strength. Cartilage extracellula...

Bovine nasal cartilage was studied by electron microscopy before and after extraction with 4 M guanidinium chloride or 1.9 M CaCl(2). These solvents removed matrix granules, basophilia, and 85% of the proteoglycan complex, measured as hexuronate. Simultaneously, many collagen fibrils were disaggregated into component microfibrils (approximately 40 A thick). In contrast to the above solvents, ex...

Extracts from bovine nasal cartilage with 1 M-guanidinium chloride were fractionated by ultrafiltration. Gel chromatography of the low-molecular-weight material resolved three distinct fractions with inhibitory activity against (a) collagenases (22000 mol.wt.), (b) thiol proteinases cathepsin B and papain (13000 mol.wt.), and (c) trypsin and other serine proteinases (7000 mol.wt.).

A time- and depth-dependent Poisson's ratio has been observed during unconfined compression experiments on articular cartilage, but existing cartilage models have not fully addressed these phenomena. The goal of this study was to develop a model which is able to predict and explain these phenomena, while also being able to fit other experimental scenarios on full depth cartilage specimens such ...