Mapping the biomechanical properties of live biological tissues and the effect of perlecan on the developing mice forelimb

Due to the low self-repair capability of cartilage, articular cartilage repair has always been a hot topic to study. Extensive research has been done to explore the formation, regeneration and biomechanical properties of the cartilage. Nowadays, the pervasive way to study the cartilage biomechanical properties is to combine the cyotome sections with the atomic force microscopy techniques. But the dead cells will definitely interfere with the extracellular matrices, which will cause some discrepancy between the real stiffness and the measured biomechanical properties. In this project, a new reliable and repeatable way to replace the cryotome sections with vibratome sections has been established, which will keep the cells alive during the whole measuring process. To validate the practicability of this new method, the hyluronic acid or actin digested and non-digested bovine cartilages were successfully test. This new method can provide us more accurate data from the cartilage samples than current method. Perlecan, one component of extracellular matrices secreted by the chondrocytes, is known for its importance of the cartilage and bone formation. By combining the new method and the perlecan knockdown mice, the effect of perlecan on the biomechanical properties of developing mice forelimb cartilage was quantitatively studied