Abstract

LANDINEZ PARRA, Nancy Stella; GARZON ALVARADO, Diego Alexander  and  VANEGAS ACOSTA, Juan Carlos. Approach to mechanobiology of articular cartilage through a computation model. Rev Cubana Invest Bioméd [online]. 2010, vol.29, n.1, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1561-3011.

Articular cartilage is a biological tissue complex coating the extremes of diarthric joints and provides resistance to compression and excellent friction properties during the articular movement. Presence of mechanical stress influenced on the behavior and physiologic condition of cartilage. That is how by means of the mechanotransduction, the chondrocytes may to perceive the stress magnitude and from this mechanical stimulus, they express gens like the Sox9 or the Runx2, which generate biochemical changes in cells and thus in the cartilage. Different experimental papers reporting on the effect of the stress imposed on the cartilage related to chondrocytes morphogenetic expression, however, there are not a mathematical model and/or computation to explain the antagonist behavior of Sox9 and the Runx2. The aim of present paper is to introduce a mathematical model allows predicting the mechano-biological behavior of articular cartilage from the cyclic mechanic stress, the hydrostatic pressure and the genic expression and or proteins providing the tissue synthesis or destruction. Model was numerically implemented using the finite elements method and the results obtained allowed to predict different mechano-biological behaviors of articular cartilage.

Keywords : Articular cartilage; chondrocytes; mathematical modeling; finite elements; mechanobiology; osteoarthritis; Sox9, Runx2.

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