The Therapeutic Effect of Herbal Mixture in Repairing Degenerated Joint

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease due to the limited capacity to repair itself. There is an increasing need for novel and more effective alternatives to promote cartilage joint regeneration. Natural compounds as herbal remedies are ideal to be considered to treat OA. In order to explore the functional herbal remedy, we investigated the efficacy of herbal mixture along with bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) in repairing rat cartilage tissues. Forty SD rats were randomly divided into four groups. A cartilage injury models by a drilling was made. The histological H&E analysis, Mankin scores and cartilage-specific markers were tested. We found that herbal mixture treatment can significantly improve the damaged cartilage compared to the control. Moreover, the combination of herbal formulation and 3D bioscaffold containing BMSCs can produce better efficacy to repair the damaged cartilages. Our data provides that herbal formulation is effective to treat damaged cartilage, and the herbal remedy along with BMSCs is most promising therapeutic effect in repairing damaged cartilage tissue, demonstrating a combinational therapeutic effect to be considered in the clinic.