Browsing by Subject "Knee joint"

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    A Reproducible Cartilage Impact Model to Generate Post-Traumatic Osteoarthritis in the Rabbit
    (MyJove Corporation, 2023-11-21) Dilley, Julian; Noori-Dokht, Hessam; Seetharam, Abhijit; Bello, Margaret; Nanavaty, Aaron; Natoli, Roman M.; McKinley, Todd; Bault, Zachary; Wagner, Diane; Sankar, Uma; Anatomy, Cell Biology and Physiology, School of Medicine
    Post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) is responsible for 12% of all osteoarthritis cases in the United States. PTOA can be initiated by a single traumatic event, such as a high-impact load acting on articular cartilage, or by joint instability, as occurs with anterior cruciate ligament rupture. There are no effective therapeutics to prevent PTOA currently. Developing a reliable animal model of PTOA is necessary to better understand the mechanisms by which cartilage damage proceeds and to investigate novel treatment strategies to alleviate or prevent the progression of PTOA. This protocol describes an open, drop tower-based rabbit femoral condyle impact model to induce cartilage damage. This model delivered peak loads of 579.1 ± 71.1 N, and peak stresses of 81.9 ± 10.1 MPa with a time-to-peak load of 2.4 ± 0.5 ms. Articular cartilage from impacted medial femoral condyles (MFCs) had higher rates of apoptotic cells (p = 0.0058) and possessed higher Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) scores of 3.38 ± 1.43 compared to the non-impacted contralateral MFCs (0.56 ± 0.42), and other cartilage surfaces of the impacted knee (p < 0.0001). No differences in OARSI scores were detected among the non-impacted articular surfaces (p > 0.05).
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    Fatigue-driven compliance increase and collagen unravelling in mechanically tested anterior cruciate ligament
    (Springer Nature, 2023-05-26) Putera, Kevin H.; Kim, Jinhee; Baek, So Young; Schlecht, Stephen H.; Beaulieu, Mélanie L.; Haritos, Victoria; Arruda, Ellen M.; Ashton-Miller, James A.; Wojtys, Edward M.; Banaszak Holl, Mark M.; Orthopaedic Surgery, School of Medicine
    Approximately 300,000 anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears occur annually in the United States, half of which lead to the onset of knee osteoarthritis within 10 years of injury. Repetitive loading is known to result in fatigue damage of both ligament and tendon in the form of collagen unravelling, which can lead to structural failure. However, the relationship between tissue's structural, compositional, and mechanical changes are poorly understood. Herein we show that repetitive submaximal loading of cadaver knees causes an increase in co-localised induction of collagen unravelling and tissue compliance, especially in regions of greater mineralisation at the ACL femoral enthesis. Upon 100 cycles of 4× bodyweight knee loading, the ACL exhibited greater unravelled collagen in highly mineralized regions across varying levels of stiffness domains as compared to unloaded controls. A decrease in the total area of the most rigid domain, and an increase in the total area of the most compliant domain was also found. The results highlight fatigue-driven changes in both protein structure and mechanics in the more mineralized regions of the ACL enthesis, a known site of clinical ACL failure. The results provide a starting point for designing studies to limit ligament overuse injury.