抄録
Normal mice and biglycan-knockout (KO) mice that hereditarily lacked in biglycan (leucine-rich proteoglycan) were used to determine the mechanical properties and remodeling mechanism of the patellar tendon (PT). After the midsubstance of the PT was surgically removed the mice were allowed cage activity up to 8 weeks. Tensile testing was performed for the patella-healing tissues-tibia complex at a rate of 0.001 mm/s using micro tensile tester developed in the present study. In normal mice, maximum stress and tangent modulus of the complex were approximately 2 % and 0.8 % as compared with control values at 1 week, and was then increased to 41 % and 38 % at 8 weeks. These data were similar to those obtained from rabbit PT in previous studies. To our knowledge, the present study represents the first attempt to investigate the mechanical property of small biological tissues such as mouse PT. Applying the developed method to KO mice will identify the remodeling mechanism of biological soft tissues.
