1999 REU Participants

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Matthew Cunningham

Matt is a Physics/Pre-Engineering major at Gustavus Adolphus College.

Cell Death Around Regions of Localized Neo-Cartilage Damage
Matthew Cunningham
Gustavus Adolphus College

Michelle Oyen-Tiesma and Jack Lewis
Department of University of Minnesota, Department of Biomedical Engineering

Mechanical damage to articular cartilage is one factor that seems to be involved in the development of degenerative joint disease. Previous studies from our lab have documented cell death near cracks made due to mechanical trauma from impact loading, but minimal death near scalpel cuts. We have hypothesized that there would be a difference in the amount of cell death between areas of cartilage scratched by a relatively blunt object, such as a ball-point needle, and those cut by a scalpel. A fluorescent viability staining agent (Propidium Iodide) was used to quantify the amount of cell death around a scratch or cut in cultured cartilage tissue. Thresholding and measurement techniques incorporated into Metamorph image analysis software were used to relate the distance from damage to the relative amount of cell death. This comparison showed a vast difference between scratches, which had ten times the death near the scratch death before trailing off, and cuts, which showed no discernable difference in the amount of cell death between the cut area and background. These results suggest that localized tissue damage may directly induce cell death in cartilage.