Program: Collaborative Research with Industry (CRI)

Field: Materials Engineering

Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Tatsuo Kitajima
Assoc. Prof. Ir. Dr. Azran Azhim (Former)
Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

Sending University: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)

Japanese Co-Investigator: Prof. Dr. Takashi USHIDA

Japanese University: The University of Tokyo

Year: 2014

Abstract:

According to World Health Organization (WHO), “Osteoarthritis (OA) is the highest-ranking disease among the musculoskeletal diseases and contributes to approximately 50% of the disease burden in this disease group”. Therefore, a research regarding the decellularization of cartilage tissue is worth to be performed by the researchers in tissue engineering field. The main purpose of this research is to apply the sonication induced acoustic cavitation for decellularization of cartilage tissue. Next is to evaluate the efficiency of decellularization through histological analysis, DNA quantification and morphological observation by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The bioscaffold material obtained from the cartilage tissue then is subjected for the subcutaneous implantation on mice, as a model. Lastly is the explantation of the biological scaffold from the mice. This is crucial in order to determine the immunological reaction after the implantation of decellularized cartilage tissue, in certain period of postoperative care.
As mentioned before, decellularized cartilage can be used as the bioscaffold material, thus applied in cartilage regeneration. This is because of the extracellular matrix (ECM) exist within the bioscaffold material is consist of different types of collagen fibers (especially type I collagen) and proteoglycans, in which multiple bioactive factors, such as growth factors, integrins, and functional peptides, are incorporated. Therefore, these components preservation actually could favor the cartilage regeneration. All these facts at least justify the usage of ECM derived from decellularization of cartilage tissue as bioscaffold material, thus holds great potential in medical industry of tissue engineering field.
(Source: Application to CRI 2014)