Abstract

Osteoarthritis is a prevalent degenerative joint disease characterized by progressive articular cartilage loss and destruction. The resultant increase in friction causes severe pain. The collagen I matrix (COL I) has been used clinically for cartilage repair; however, how COL I acts at cartilage surfaces is unclear. Here, we studied adsorption and lubrication of synovial fluid components, albumin, γ-globulin, and the phospholipid DPPC, on COL I under physiological conditions using surface plasmon resonance and an in situ sensing surface force apparatus. Our results revealed COL I had poor lubrication ability, a fairly high coefficient of friction (COF, μ = 0.651 ± 0.013), and surface damage under a 7 mN load. DPPC formed an improved lubricating layer on COL I (μ = 0.072 ± 0.016). In sharp contrast, albumin and γ-globulin exhibited poor lubrication with an order of magnitude higher COF but still provided benefits by protecting COL I from wear. Hence, DPPC on COL I may help optimize COL I implantation design.

Highlights

  • Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common degenerative and highly prevalent joint disease,[1−4] which is characterized by progressive loss and destruction of the articular cartilage extracellular matrix.[1−8] The treatment of osteoarthritis is a major focus in medicine, to regenerate damaged articular cartilage, since the self-repair capability of damaged cartilage tissue is very limited: cartilage has an avascular structure and low cell content.[9]

  • During the final rinsing with PBS, there was no decrease in the SPR signal, suggesting that collagen I matrix (COL I) was strongly bound to the Au surface with irreversible adsorption and no COL I was washed off

  • To conclude, using surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy, we first studied the adsorption behavior of synovial fluid boundary lubricants, namely, albumin, γ-globulin, and DPPC, on a collagen I matrix in a physiological synovial fluid mimic

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Summary

Introduction

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common degenerative and highly prevalent joint disease,[1−4] which is characterized by progressive loss and destruction of the articular cartilage extracellular matrix.[1−8] The treatment of osteoarthritis is a major focus in medicine, to regenerate damaged articular cartilage, since the self-repair capability of damaged cartilage tissue is very limited: cartilage has an avascular structure and low cell content.[9]. The COL I provides a good support to regenerate the cartilage tissue, immobilizing the material on the damaged site after the implantation is a big challenge. How to design a mechanically stable and low friction treatment that resolves the issues addressed above inspired us to study the lubrication properties of COL I in a model articular cartilage system. Articular cartilage is a highly efficient water-based lubrication system with a sliding coefficient of friction (COF) of 5 × 10−4 and can support up to 20 MPa of normal pressure.[15−18] The efficiency of such a lubrication system is strongly influenced by the synovial fluid (SF) that mediates the shear plane properties with different surface-adsorbed lubrication molecules, i.e., surfaces slide past each other along the plane of adsorbed molecules rather than along a direct contact.[19]

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