Articular cartilage is a highly specialized connective tissue in the body responsible for protecting and cushioning bony ends in diarthrodial joints. Despite the unique ability of this tough, spongy matrix to absorb repetitive stress and loading, cartilage damage is a common occurrence, and as cartilage possesses poor self-repair capabilities, tissue-engineered cartilage replacement is under development as a viable method of repair. Tissue-engineered constructs have thus far been unable to replicate the matrix composition of native cartilage satisfactorily enough to produce usable mechanical properties; in particular, collagen content is very low. One means of improving engineered construct composition may be pulsed low-intensity ultrasound (PLIUS), which is used clinically to stimulate healing of chronic bone lesions, and has been shown to affect chondrocytes in cartilage explants and engineered constructs. We believe it may be of use specifically in improving collagen quantity and quality in engineered constructs. FT-IR spectroscopy shows promise as a valuable tool in collagen crosslink maturity analysis, replacing the current expensive, complicated standard of HPLC and allowing for high-resolution spatial mapping of components. A spectral parameter has been established in literature as being related to collagen maturity in bone, which we explore as a potential means of assessing collagen quality in our engineered cartilage. The specific aims of this research are twofold: first, to assess whether PLIUS improves primary bovine chondrocyte-seeded poly-glycolic acid (PGA) mesh scaffold composition by culturing groups with and without PLIUS stimulation, and second, to correlate FT-IR parameters (including the aforementioned maturity parameter) from engineered cartilage specimens and pure crosslink peptides to mechanical testing in unconfined compression. / Bioengineering
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TEMPLE/oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/2380 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Shockley, Michael |
| Contributors | Pleshko, Nancy, Suh, Won H., Yingling, Vanessa R. |
| Publisher | Temple University. Libraries |
| Source Sets | Temple University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 60 pages |
| Rights | IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/2362, Theses and Dissertations |
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