Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T19:54:03.162Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

On the ultrastructure of softened cartilage: a possible model for structural transformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 1998

MIN-HUEY CHEN
Affiliation:
Biomechanics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Auckland, New Zealand
NEIL BROOM
Affiliation:
Biomechanics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Get access

Abstract

The fibrillar architecture in the general matrix of softened cartilage has been compared with that of the normal matrix using both Nomarski light microscopy and transmission electron microscopy with combined stereoscopic reconstruction. A pseudorandom network developed from an overall radial arrangement of collagen fibrils is the most fundamental ultrastructural characteristic of the normal general matrix. This, in turn, provides an efficient entrapment system for the swelling proteoglycans. Conversely, the most distinctive feature of the softened matrix is the presence of parallel and relatively unentwined fibrils, strongly aligned in the radial direction. The presence of an optically resolvable fibrous texture in the softened cartilage matrix indicates the presence of discrete bundles of closely packed and aligned fibrils at the ultrastructural level of organisation. The general absence of such texture in the normal cartilage general matrix is consistent with the much greater degree of interconnectedness and related short-range obliquity in the fibrillar architecture, hence the importance of the term pseudorandom network. A mechanism of structural transformation is proposed based on the important property of lateral interconnectivity in the fibrils which involves both entwinement and nonentwinement based interactions. The previously reported difference in intrinsic mechanical strength between the normal and softened matrices is consistent with the transformation model proposed in this study.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)