INTRODUCTION: Contrast Enhanced CT imaging of articular cartilage (CECT) is predicated on the use of positively or negatively charged contrast agents that function as mobile ionic probes that partition themselves in direct or indirect proportion to the glycosaminoglycan (GAG) content of the cartilage matrix according to Donnan equilibrium. Ex-vivo studies have shown that CECT imaging of cartila...

Cartilage is a tissue with limited self-healing potential. Hence, cartilage defects require surgical attention to prevent or postpone the development of osteoarthritis. For cell-based cartilage repair strategies, in particular autologous chondrocyte implantation, articular chondrocytes are isolated from cartilage and expanded in vitro to increase the number of cells required for therapy. During...

Introduction The regeneration of articular cartilage remains a challenge and is an unmet clinical need in orthopaedic surgery. Since hyaline articular cartilage will not heal spontaneously, these lesions eventually lead to degenerative joint disease. Cartilage abrasion, subchondral drilling, and microfracture techniques stimulate articular cartilage healing by introducing endogenous “stem cells...

Recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques have shown potential for measuring non-uniform deformations throughout the volume (i.e. three-dimensional (3D) deformations) in small orthopedic tissues such as articular cartilage. However, to analyze cartilage deformation using MRI techniques, a system is required which can construct images from multiple acquisitions of MRI signals from the c...

The insoluble protein fraction was prepared from the central and posterior peripheral fraction of bovine vitreous humour. The collagen present in this fraction was solubilized by pepsin and fractionated by gel chromatography. Analysis of the solubilized collagen fractions showed that the alpha-chain component had an amino acid composition and yielded a series of CNBr-cleavage peptides that show...

Proteoglycan link proteins were isolated from human articular cartilage obtained from normal and osteoarthritic femoral heads and purified to homogeneity employing a method previously described by this laboratory. The link proteins were analysed for amino acid composition, molecular weight on sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gels, and ability to stabilise proteoglycan aggregates. The resu...

Porcine synovium in organ culture produces a factor that causes chondrocytes to degrade their matrix. A quantitative assay for the factor, for which the cartilage of bovine nasal septum is used, is described. Evidence is presented that the catabolic factor is a protein.

Despite significant advances of the bovine epigenome investigation, new evidence for epigenetic basis fetal cartilage development remains lacking. In this study, chondrocytes were isolated from long bone tissues fetuses at 90 days. The Assay Transposase-Accessible Chromatin with high throughput sequencing (ATAC-seq) and transcriptome (RNA-seq) used to characterize gene expression chromatin acce...