Experimental Study On Treatment Of Rabbit Epiphyseal Plate Injury With Tissue-engineered Epiphyseal Cartilage

Growth arrest in the epiphyseal plate during childhood often causes both periarticular deformities and limb length discrepancy,leading to compartmental osteoarthrosis and gait disturbance or spinal disorders,respectively.Traditional treatments for bony bridge include packing an interpositional material such as fat and bone cement after removal of the bone bar.It can partly remedy the angulation deformity and recover the ability of longitudinal growth but got no satisfactory results.The main reason is that the interpositional materials can only restrain the form of bone bridge in virtue of passive barriers,but growth-ability.The interpositional materials with growth ability has become one of the important research point consequently.With the rapid progress of Tissue-engineered technique,the tissue-engineered epiphyseal cartilage has a good short-term effect. Therefore we construct a novel natural epiphyseal plate intent to recove the ability of longitudinal growth,so as to get a satisfactory long-term effect.Objective:Observed and compared the growth characteristics of cultured physeal chondrocytes by technique of cell culture in vitro to find the right place with the great growth potential;Cultured the engineered epiphyseal growth plate in vitro by using cattle articular cartilage extracellular matrix as cell scaffold seeded with epiphyseal chondrocytes;Implanted the engineered tissue into the lateral distal defects of growth plate of New Zealand rabbit femur to observe whether it can prevent the growth deformity of not.Method:(1)After cultivate the epiphyseal chondrocytes in vitro,we observed the growth characteristics of cultured physeal chondrocytes by light microscope and staining;Compared the growth potential of chondrocytes from different postion by growth curve to destermined the better one. (2)It is determined that the cattle articular cartilage extracellular matrix whether have a influence on epiphyseal chondrocytes by light microscope,electron microscope,staining technique after seeded epiphyseal chondrocytes into cattle articular cartilage extracellular matrix.To observe the degradation time and rejection by transplant the complex and cattle articular cartilage extracellular matrix into muscle of rabbit's back.(3)Transplanted the complex into the lateral distal defects of growth plate of rabbit femur to observed the growth and deformity in different time.Results:(1)The epiphyseal chondrocyte from femur and tibia of 2 weeks rabbit is better than the others in characteristics and output of unit volume.It's better not to use the chondroeytes after 3 passages in preparing the engineered tissue,otherwise they will lost the optimal growth potential.(2)The histocompatibility of cattle articular cartilage extracellular matrix is good.CACECM will degradate in vivo generally with no rejection and tissue left.It can provide a three dimensional space for epiphyseal chondrocytes to grow.While seeding in epiphyseal chondrocytes,it would keeping grow in vitro and form similar cartilage tissue in vivo.(3)The engineered epiphyseal tissue can prevent the formation of the femur deformity in different time.While the implantation of CACECM scaffold alone couldn't.It is proved in this paper that the engineered epiphyseal tissue can prevent the formation of bony bridge and promote the growth of the injured growth plate in treatment of premature arrest of growth plate.There are several good quality as follow:â‘ donator will not shortage.â‘¡the engineered epiphyseal tissue has a certain ability of growth.â‘¢little immunogenicity than implantation chondrocytes alone.â‘£It could get nutrition more easier in implant prophase due to the loose tissue structure.