ArticlePloS one2013
Effect of age and cytoskeletal elements on the indentation-dependent mechanical properties of chondrocytes.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mechanical cues enhance chondrocyte function: Insights from mechanoreception, regulation, and biological responses.Mechanobiology in medicine · 2025Review
- Review
- Biomechanics of Chondrocytes and Chondrons in Healthy Conditions and Osteoarthritis: A Review of the Mechanical Characterisations at the Microscale.Biomedicines · 2023Review
- Review
- The cellular mechanobiology of aging: from biology to mechanics.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2021Review
- Correlation of damage score in PTOA with changes in stress on cartilage in an ovine model.Osteoarthritis and cartilage open · 2020Article
- Experimental study of the difference in deformation between normal and pathological, renal and bladder, cells induced by acoustic radiation force.European biophysics journal : EBJ · 2020Article
- Proteome Alterations in Equine Osteochondrotic Chondrocytes.International journal of molecular sciences · 2019Article
- Effects of Inflammation on Multiscale Biomechanical Properties of Cartilaginous Cells and Tissues.ACS biomaterials science & engineering · 2017Review
- Carbon Nanotubes Induced Fibrogenesis on Nanostructured Substrates.Environmental science. Nano · 2017Article
- Effects of mechanical stress on chondrocyte phenotype and chondrocyte extracellular matrix expression.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- Effects of Osmolarity on the Spontaneous Calcium Signaling of In Situ Juvenile and Adult Articular Chondrocytes.Annals of biomedical engineering · 2016Article
- The intrinsic stiffness of human trabecular meshwork cells increases with senescence.Oncotarget · 2015Article
- Interleukin-1β and tumor necrosis factor-α increase stiffness and impair contractile function of articular chondrocytes.Acta biochimica et biophysica Sinica · 2015Article
- High-Throughput Assessment of Cellular Mechanical Properties.Annual review of biomedical engineering · 2015Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Articular cartilage chondrocytes are responsible for the synthesis, maintenance, and turnover of the extracellular matrix, metabolic processes that contribute to the mechanical properties of these cells. Here, we systematically evaluated the effect of age and cytoskeletal disruptors on the mechanical properties of chondrocytes as a function of deformation. We quantified the indentation-dependent mechanical properties of chondrocytes isolated from neonatal (1-day), adult (5-year) and geriatric (12-year) bovine knees using atomic force microscopy (AFM). We also measured the contribution of the actin and intermediate filaments to the indentation-dependent mechanical properties of chondrocytes. By integrating AFM with confocal fluorescent microscopy, we monitored cytoskeletal and biomechanical deformation in transgenic cells (GFP-vimentin and mCherry-actin) under compression. We found that the elastic modulus of chondrocytes in all age groups decreased with increased indentation (15-2000 nm). The elastic modulus of adult chondrocytes was significantly greater than neonatal cells at indentations greater than 500 nm. Viscoelastic moduli (instantaneous and equilibrium) were comparable in all age groups examined; however, the intrinsic viscosity was lower in geriatric chondrocytes than neonatal. Disrupting the actin or the intermediate filament structures altered the mechanical properties of chondrocytes by decreasing the elastic modulus and viscoelastic properties, resulting in a dramatic loss of indentation-dependent response with treatment. Actin and vimentin cytoskeletal structures were monitored using confocal fluorescent microscopy in transgenic cells treated with disruptors, and both treatments had a profound disruptive effect on the actin filaments. Here we show that disrupting the structure of intermediate filaments indirectly altered the configuration of the actin cytoskeleton. These findings underscore the importance of the cytoskeletal elements in the overall mechanical response of chondrocytes, indicating that intermediate filament integrity is key to the non-linear elastic properties of chondrocytes. This study improves our understanding of the mechanical properties of articular cartilage at the single cell level.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.