Reduced viability in the deepest zones of osteochondral allografts (OCAs) can weaken the subchondral interface, potentially causing graft delamination and failure. This reduction may result from nutritional imbalances due to uneven media distribution or interference from bone marrow elements. This study aims to investigate whether culturing OCAs using a rotatory shaker or removing the bone marrow elements increase graft cellular viability.
Bovine osteochondral (OC) explants were stored for 28 days at 4°C under three different conditions (n = 6 explants/group): static (control group), rotatory shaker at 150 rpm (shaker group), and static after removing bone marrow elements using a waterpik device (waterpik group). Chondrocyte viability was assessed using live/dead staining across the entire tissue and in each zone (superficial, middle, deep zone). Subchondral bone viability was assessed using tunel staining by detecting apoptotic cells.
The use of a rotatory shaker (p = 0.010) or waterpik (p = 0.005) significantly increased chondrocyte viability compared to the static control. When analyzing by zone, both the shaker and the waterpik groups displayed higher cellular viability in the middle (p < 0.001) and deep zone (p = 0.018, shaker; p = 0.025, waterpik) when contrasted with the control group. Furthermore, shaker and waterpik groups demonstrated reduced levels of subchondral bone apoptotic cells compared to control (p = 0.018 and p = 0.007, respectively). Notably, no significant differences were observed between the shaker and waterpik groups in any of the analyses.
These findings indicate that both rotatory shaking and removing bone marrow elements during osteochondral explants storage lead to higher cellular viability at the middle and deep zones of the graft compared to the static storage condition. Enhancing nutrition delivery to the graft could improve its quality, potentially improving outcomes of OCA transplantation.
See how this article has been cited at scite.ai
scite shows how a scientific paper has been cited by providing the context of the citation, a classification describing whether it supports, mentions, or contrasts the cited claim, and a label indicating in which section the citation was made.