Influence of cartilaginous matrix accumulation on viscoelastic response of chondrocyte/agarose constructs under dynamic compressive and shear loading

A method has been developed to restore cartilage defects by culturing autologous chondrocytes to create a three dimensional tissue and then implanting the cultured tissue. In this kind of approach, it is important to characterize the dynamic mechanical behavior of the regenerated cartilaginous tissue, because these tissues need to bear various dynamic loadings in daily life. The objectives of this study were to evaluate in detail the dynamic viscoelastic responses of chondrocyte-seeded agarose gel cultures in compression and torsion (shear) and to determine the relationships between these mechanical responses and biochemical composition. The results showed that both the dynamic compressive and shear stiffness of the cultured constructs increased during culture. The relative energy dissipation in dynamic compression decreased, whereas that in dynamic shear increased during culture. Furthermore, correlation analyses showed that the sulfated glycosaminoglycan (sGAG) content of the cultured construct showed significant correlations with the dynamic modulus in both compression and shear situations. On the other hand, the loss tangent in dynamic compression, which represents the relative energy dissipation capability of the constructs, showed a low correlation with the sGAG content, whereas this capability in shear exhibited moderate correlation. In conclusion, we explored the dynamic viscoelasticity of the tissue-engineered cartilage in dynamic compression and shear, and determined correlations between viscoelasticity and biochemical composition.