Complex mechanical behavior of human articular cartilage and hydrogels for cartilage repair

Weizel A, Distler T, Schneidereit D, Friedrich O, Bräuer L, Paulsen F, Detsch R, Boccaccini AR, Budday S, Seitz H (2020)

Publication Language: English

Publication Type: Journal article, Original article

Publication year: 2020

Journal

Acta Biomaterialia Elsevier

URI: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742706120306140

DOI: 10.1016/j.actbio.2020.10.025

Open Access Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742706120306140

Abstract

The mechanical behavior of cartilage tissue plays a crucial role in physiological mechanotransduction processes of chondrocytes and pathological changes like osteoarthritis. Therefore, intensive research activities focus on the identification of implant substitute materials that mechanically mimic the cartilage extracellular matrix. This, however, requires a thorough understanding of the complex mechanical behavior of both native cartilage and potential substitute materials to treat cartilage lesions. Here, we perform complex multi-modal mechanical analyses of human articular cartilage and two surrogate materials, commercially available ChondroFillerliquid, and oxidized alginate-gelatin (ADA-GEL) hydrogels. We show that all materials exhibit nonlinearity and compression-tension asymmetry. However, while hyaline cartilage yields higher stresses in tension than in compression, ChondroFillerliquid and ADA-GEL exhibit the opposite trend. These characteristics can be attributed to the materials’ underlying microstructure: Both cartilage and ChondroFillerliquid contain fibrillar components, but the latter constitutes a bi-phasic structure, where the 60% nonfibrillar hydrogel proportion dominates the mechanical response. Of all materials, ChondroFillerliquid shows the most pronounced viscous effects. The present study provides important insights into the microstructure-property relationship of cartilage substitute materials, with vital implications for mechanically-driven material design in cartilage engineering. In addition, we provide a data set to create mechanical simulation models in the future.

Authors with CRIS profile

Thomas Distler Lehrstuhl für Werkstoffwissenschaften (Biomaterialien) Dominik Schneidereit Lehrstuhl für Medizinische Biotechnologie Oliver Friedrich Lehrstuhl für Medizinische Biotechnologie Lars Bräuer Professur für Oberflächenaktive Proteine Friedrich Paulsen Lehrstuhl für Funktionelle und Klinische Anatomie Rainer Detsch Lehrstuhl für Werkstoffwissenschaften (Biomaterialien) Aldo Boccaccini Lehrstuhl für Werkstoffwissenschaften (Biomaterialien) Silvia Budday Lehrstuhl für Technische Mechanik

Involved external institutions

Universität Rostock DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Weizel, A., Distler, T., Schneidereit, D., Friedrich, O., Bräuer, L., Paulsen, F.,... Seitz, H. (2020). Complex mechanical behavior of human articular cartilage and hydrogels for cartilage repair. Acta Biomaterialia. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2020.10.025

MLA:

Weizel, A., et al. "Complex mechanical behavior of human articular cartilage and hydrogels for cartilage repair." Acta Biomaterialia (2020).

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