biomechanical influence of cartilage homeostasis in health and disease软骨内稳态的生物力学影响健康和疾病.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Arthritis Volume 2011, Article ID 979032, 16 pages doi:10.1155/2011/979032 Review Article Biomechanical Influence of Cartilage Homeostasis in Health and Disease D. L. Bader,1 D. M. Salter,2 and T. T. Chowdhury1 1 School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK 2 Department of Pathology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH4 2XU, UK Correspondence should be addressed to T. T. Chowdhury, t.t.chowdhury@qmul.ac.uk Received 1 April 2011; Accepted 26 June 2011 Academic Editor: Johanne Martel-Pelletier Copyright © 2011 D. L. Bader et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. There is an urgent demand for long term solutions to improve osteoarthritis treatments in the ageing population. There are drugs that control the pain but none that stop the progression of the disease in a safe and efficient way. Increased intervention efforts, augmented by early diagnosis and integrated biophysical therapies are therefore needed. Unfortunately, progress has been hampered due to the wide variety of experimental models which examine the effect of mechanical stimuli and inflammatory mediators on signal transduction pathways. Our understanding of the early mechanopathophysiology is poor, particularly the way in which mechanical stimuli influences cell function and regulates matrix synthesis. This makes it difficult to identify reliable targets and design new therapies. In addition, the effect of mechanical loading on matrix turnover is dependent on the nature of the mechanical stimulus. Accumulating evidence suggests that moderate me