Under rolling loads preliminary research on solute transport in articular cartilage

The solute transport in vivo is an important biological behavior within the avascular extracellular matrix of articular cartilage. Mechanical condition drives the cartilage to obtain nutrition and exclude waste during daily activities. The investigation of the transport behavior within the tissue is important to the understanding of the mechanisms of nutritional transport and mechanosignal transduction in cartilage. Under rolling loads, the solute transport within articular cartilage was preliminarily researched using the fluorescence detector to observe solute transport. In experiments, the compression rate of rolling loading is about 20%, rolling speed is 10cm / s, with experimental time respectively are 50s, 100s, and 5 min. Compared with the control group, the results show that the rolling load promoted the solute transport within articular cartilage. Although the exact promotion mechanism is unclear, the rolling loading may provide a potential load to enhance the solute transport, and may be applied to cartilage tissue engineering.