Artificial cartilage made from a novel double-network hydrogel: In vivo effects on the normal cartilage and ex vivo evaluation of the friction property

• Published in: Journal of biomedical materials research. Part A Vol. 93A; no. 3; pp. 1160 - 1168
• Main Authors: Arakaki, Kazunobu, Kitamura, Nobuto, Fujiki, Hiroyuki, Kurokawa, Takayuki, Iwamoto, Mikio, Ueno, Masaru, Kanaya, Fuminori, Osada, Yoshihito, Gong, Jian Ping, Yasuda, Kazunori
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company 01.06.2010; Wiley-Blackwell
• Subjects: Acrylamides - pharmacology; Animals; Artificial Organs; Biological and medical sciences; cartilage; Cartilage - drug effects; Cartilage - pathology; coefficient of friction; confocal laser scanning microscopy; Friction - drug effects; Hindlimb - drug effects; Hindlimb - pathology; Hindlimb - surgery; hydrogel; Hydrogel, Polyethylene Glycol Dimethacrylate - pharmacology; Immunohistochemistry; Materials Testing; Medical sciences; Microscopy, Confocal; Polymers - pharmacology; Rabbits; Sulfonic Acids - pharmacology; Surface Properties - drug effects; surface roughness; Surgery (general aspects). Transplantations, organ and tissue grafts. Graft diseases; Technology. Biomaterials. Equipments; coefficient of friction; Roughness; cartilage; Confocal microscopy; surface roughness; In vivo; Articular cartilage; Ex vivo; Friction; confocal laser scanning microscopy; Laser; Friction coefficient; Surface properties; Biomaterial; Hydrogel; Biomedical engineering; Tribology
• ISSN: 1549-3296; 1552-4965; 1552-4965
• DOI: 10.1002/jbm.a.32613

This study evaluated the in vivo influence of a poly‐(2‐Acrylamido‐2‐methylpropane sulfonic acid)/poly‐(N,N'‐dimetyl acrylamide) (PAMPS/PDMAAm) double‐network (DN) hydrogel on counterface cartilage in rabbit knee joints and its ex vivo friction properties on normal cartilage. In the first experiment, the DN gel was implanted in a surgically created defect in the femoral trochlea of rabbit knee joints and the left knee was used as the control. Evaluations using a confocal laser scanning microscopy demonstrated that the DN gel did not affect the surface microstructure (surface roughness, the number of small pits) of the counterface cartilage in vivo at 4 and 12 weeks. The histology also showed that the DN gel hadno pathological damage on the cartilage matrices and cells at 4 weeks. However, two of the five DN gel‐implanted knees showed mild irregularity on the counterface cartilage surface at 12 weeks. In the second experiment, the friction property between the normal and the artificial cartilage was determined using a joint simulator apparatus. The ex vivo mean friction coefficient of the DN gel to normal cartilage was 0.029, while that of the normal‐to‐normal cartilage articulation was 0.188. The coefficient of the DN gel‐to‐normal cartilage articulation was significantly lower than that of the normal‐to‐normal cartilage articulation (p < 0.0001). This study suggested that the PAMPS/PDMAAm DN gel has very low friction coefficient on normal cartilage and has no significant detrimental effects on counterface cartilage in vivo, and can be a promising material to develop the artificial cartilage. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res, 2010