2009 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

A Phenotypic Comparison of Proteoglycan Production of Intervertebral Disc Cells Isolated from Rats, Rabbits and Bovine Tails: Which Animal Model is Most Suitable to Study Tissue Engineering and Biological Repair of Human Disc Disorders?

Research Project

Project/Area Number	20791027
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Orthopaedic surgery
Research Institution	University of Fukui
Principal Investigator	MIYAZAKI Tsuyoshi University of Fukui, 医学部・附属病院, 助教 (80324169)
Project Period (FY)	2008 – 2009
Keywords	骨・軟骨代謝学 / 変性椎間板 / 三次元軟骨培養 / 椎間板再生 / 動物モデル
Research Abstract	In humans, notochordal cells disappear from the NP and are replaced with chondrocytic cells by adolescence. However, notochordal cells of the NP persist into adult life in some species, such as rats and rabbits. Therefore, comparison of the metabolic activity of notochordal and non-notochordal cells is considered to be important for determining the type of cell to use for transplantation to regenerate intervertebral discs. In this study, we investigated the notochordal NP cells of rats and rabbits, as well as non-notochordal (chondrocyte-like) bovine NP cells, in a three-dimensional culture system to examine whether proteoglycan metabolism varied among these three cell types. In conclusion, this study demonstrated marked differences of energy metabolism and production of matrix components between notochordal and nonnotochordal NP cells.