Effect of insulin, hydrocortisone and their combined application on the proliferation of chondrocytes / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Intra-articular injection of hormone has been applied in the treatment of arthritis because it can alleviate arthralgia rapidly, which is accompanied commonly by progressive cartilage impairments. It is not clear if supplement of growth factor like insulin effect can play a protective role in articular chondrocytes.OBJECTIVE: To observe the effects of insulin or hydrocortisone alone and the combination on the proliferation of chondrocytes.DESIGN: Grouping comparative study, the effect of one medicine was analyzed by using one-factor analysis of variance, while the combined effect was analyzed with multi-factor analysis of variance.SETTING: Guangdong Institute of Trauma Sugery.MATERIALS Articular cartilage from the knees of New Zealand white rabbits of 4 - 6 weeks old.METHODS: This study was carried out at Guangzhou Traumatic Research Institute from Feberary 2000 to May 2001. Chondrocytes were isolated from the knee joints of New Zealand white rabbits, digested with hyaluronidase,pancreatin and type Ⅱ collagenase and exposed to insulin, hydrocortisone or the combination of insulin and hydrocortisone of different dosage. They were divided into four groupsControl group ( without adding insulin and hydrocortisone), insulin group (0. 035,0. 35,3.5,35 mg/L subgroups), hydrocortisone group(1,5,10,50,100 mg/L subgroups) and insulin(0. 35 mg/L) combined with hydrocortisone(50 mg/L) group. Their influence on chondrocytes proliferation was observed with methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium(MTT) method.sulin.at the concentration of 0. 035 mg/L( P ＜ 0.01 ), reaching the maximum at could inhibit the proliferation of chondrocytes ( P ＜ 0.05 ), which became significant with increasing concentration and no viable chondrocytes could be exposed to 0 . 35 mg/L insulin combined with 50 mg/L hydrocortisone, the promoting effect of insulin was inhibited due to negative cooperation.CONCLUSION: Insulin at low concentration could enhance the proliferation of chondrocytes, but hydrocortisone displayed inhibiting effect on the growth of chondrocytes. The function of insulin was antagonized when combined with hydrocortisone.