Imaging the development of a bone-to-bone ligament construct

Ligament injuries are commonplace, with poor native healing leaving injury sites exposed to instability and further damage. A number of surgical methods have been established for reconstruction using a range of materials, but these have a high failure rate and a number of undesirable side-effects. Much recent work has been focused on the development of tissue engineered ligament grafts. One of the major challenges for this is the formation of an effective ligament-bone interface. In native tissue a multi-phase interface enables smooth transfer of forces between the mechanically mismatched bone and ligament tissue, however this has proved hard to replicate. Previous work has developed a bone-bone ligament construct model intended to emulate the native interface through formation of a mineralised region by soluble cement anchors. Development and optimisation of the model has seen an increasing mechanical strength, but the mechanisms involved are poorly understood. This study investigates the development of the ligament construct through the use of multiple complimentary imaging techniques to provide information on the biological, chemical, and topological development of the construct as it forms from initially homogeneous and separate materials to a complex non-homogeneous system