A chemo-mechano-biological modeling framework for cartilage evolving in health, disease, injury, and treatment

卷:231

Article

关键词: GROWTH-FACTOR-BETA;    HUMAN ARTICULAR-CARTILAGE;    HUMAN OSTEOARTHRITIC CARTILAGE;    APOPTOTIC CHONDROCYTE DEATH;    SYNOVIAL-FLUID;    TGF-BETA;    MATRIX-METALLOPROTEINASE;    SUPERFICIAL ZONE;    TISSUE INHIBITOR;    GENE-EXPRESSION;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.cmpb.2023.107419

来源: SCIE

【 摘 要 】

Background and Objective: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a pervasive and debilitating disease, wherein degener-ation of cartilage features prominently. Despite extensive research, we do not yet understand the cause or progression of OA. Studies show biochemical, mechanical, and biological factors affect cartilage health. Mechanical loads influence synthesis of biochemical constituents which build and/or break down carti-lage, and which in turn affect mechanical loads. OA-associated biochemical profiles activate cellular activ-ity that disrupts homeostasis. To understand the complex interplay among mechanical stimuli, biochem-ical signaling, and cartilage function requires integrating vast research on experimental mechanics and mechanobiology-a task approachable only with computational models. At present, mechanical models of cartilage generally lack chemo-biological effects, and biochemical models lack coupled mechanics, let alone interactions over time.Methods: We establish a first-of-its kind virtual cartilage: a modeling framework that considers time -dependent, chemo-mechano-biologically induced turnover of key constituents resulting from biochemical, mechanical, and/or biological activity. We include the minimally essential yet complex chemical and mechanobiological mechanisms. Our 3-D framework integrates a constitutive model for the mechanics of cartilage with a novel model of homeostatic adaptation by chondrocytes to pathological mechanical stimuli, and a new application of anisotropic growth (loss) to simulate degradation clinically observed as cartilage thinning.Results: Using a single set of representative parameters, our simulations of immobilizing and overloading successfully captured loss of cartilage quantified experimentally. Simulations of immobilizing, overload-ing, and injuring cartilage predicted dose-dependent recovery of cartilage when treated with suramin, a proposed therapeutic for OA. The modeling framework prompted us to add growth factors to the suramin treatment, which predicted even better recovery.Conclusions: Our flexible framework is a first step toward computational investigations of how cartilage and chondrocytes mechanically and biochemically evolve in degeneration of OA and respond to phar-macological therapies. Our framework will enable future studies to link physical activity and resulting mechanical stimuli to progression of OA and loss of cartilage function, facilitating new fundamental un-derstanding of the complex progression of OA and elucidating new perspectives on causes, treatments, and possible preventions.(c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

【 授权许可】

Free