Intra-articular administration of hyaluronic acid increases the volume of the hyaline cartilage regenerated in a large osteochondral defect by implantation of a double-network gel

Abstract

Implantation of PAMPS/PDMAAm double-network (DN) gel can induce hyaline cartilage regeneration in the osteochondral defect. However, it is a problem that the volume of the regenerated cartilage tissue is gradually reduced at 12 weeks. This study investigated whether intra-articular administration of hyaluronic acid (HA) increases the volume of the cartilage regenerated with the DN gel at 12 weeks. A total of 48 rabbits were used in this study. A cylindrical osteochondral defect created in the bilateral femoral trochlea was treated with DN gel (Group DN) or left without any implantation (Group C). In both Groups, we injected 1.0 mL of HA in the left knee, and 1.0 mL of saline solution in the right knee. Quantitative histological evaluations were performed at 2, 4, and 12 weeks, and PCR analysis was performed at 2 and 4 weeks after surgery. In Group DN, the proteoglycan-rich area was significantly greater in the HA-injected knees than in the saline-injected knees at 12 weeks (P = 0.0247), and expression of type 2 collagen, aggrecan, and Sox9 mRNAs was significantly greater in the HA-injected knees than in the saline-injected knees at 2 weeks (P = 0.0475, P = 0.0257, P = 0.0222, respectively). The intra-articular administration of HA significantly enhanced these gene expression at 2 weeks and significantly increased the volume of the hyaline cartilage regenerated by implantation of a DN gel at 12 weeks. This information is important to develop an additional method to increase the volume of the hyaline cartilage tissue in a potential cartilage regeneration strategy using the DN gel.

Functional Hydrogels With Tunable Structures and Properties for Tissue Engineering Applications

“…The other strategy is to prepare interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) hydrogels with high resistance to wear and high fracture strength, which has gained a lot of attention recently (Dragan, 2014 ). Double networks (DN) are introduced in hydrogels to enhance mechanical property for cartilage TE (Gong et al, 2003 ; Yasuda et al, 2009 ; Fukui et al, 2014 ). The feature of DN hydrogels is the formulation of first densely crosslinked hydrogel and second loosely network.…”

Advancements and Frontiers in the High Performance of Natural Hydrogels for Cartilage Tissue Engineering

“…The other strategy is to prepare interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) hydrogels with high mechanics and fracture strength, which has gained a lot of attention for cartilage tissue engineering (Dragan, 2014). Double networks (DN) are introduced in hydrogels to enhance mechanical property for cartilage tissue engineering (Gong et al, 2003;Yasuda et al, 2009;Fukui et al, 2014). The feature of DN hydrogels is the formulation of, first, a densely crosslinked hydrogel, and second, a loose network.…”

Recent advances in hydrogels for cartilage tissue engineering

“…The tissue formed in the presence of double networks also exhibited similar gene expression profiles (Imabuchi et al ., 2011) and tissue surface roughness to native cartilage, even as observed by confocal laser scanning microscopy. Furthermore, combinatorial therapies using double network hydrogels and intra-articular injections (e.g., HA) have shown potential in tissue quality as measured by histological scoring and the volume of cartilage generated by double network hydrogels implanted in cylindrical osteochondral defects in rabbit femoral trochlea at both 4 and 12 weeks—again, using acellular plugs of the PAMPS/PDMAAm double network (Fukui et al ., 2014). …”