Chondrocyte deformation within compressed agarose constructs at the cellular and sub-cellular levels

Mechanotransduction events in articular cartilage may be resolved into extracellular components followed by intracellular signalling events, which finally lead to altered cell response. Cell deformation is one of the former components, which has been examined using a model involving bovine chondrocytes seeded in agarose constructs. Viable fluorescent labels and confocal laser scanning microscopy were used to examine cellular and sub-cellular morphology. It was observed that cell size increased up to day 6 in culture, associated with an increase in the contents of proteoglycan and collagen. In addition, the organisation of the cytoskeleton components, described using a simple scoring scale, revealed temporal changes for actin fibres, microtubules and vimentin intermediate filaments. The constructs on day 1 were also subjected to unconfined compressive strains. A series of confocal scans through the centre of individual cells revealed a change from a spherical to an elliptical morphology. This was demonstrated by a change in diameter ratio, from a mean value of 1.00 at 0% strain to 0.60 at 25% strain. Using simple equations, the volume and surface areas were also estimated from the scans. Although the former revealed little change with increasing construct strain, surface area appeared to increase significantly. However further examination, using transmission electron microscopy to reveal fine ultrastructural detail at the cell periphery, suggest that this increase may be due to an unravelling of folds at the cell membrane. Cell deformation was associated with a decrease in the nuclear diameter, in the direction of the applied strain. The resulting nuclear strain in one direction increased in constructs compressed at later time points, although its values at all three assessment times were less than the corresponding values for cell strain. It is suggested that the nuclear behaviour may be a direct result of temporal changes observed in the organisation of the cytoskeleton. The study demonstrated that the chondrocyte–agarose model provides a useful system for the examination of compression events at both cellular and sub-cellular levels.