Morphologic and Chemical Changes in Young and Old Articular Cartilages in Femoral Head and Mandibular Head of SAM P/6 Mouse

Abstract

In order to clarify the joint degenration on the mandibular and femoral head, we obserued changes in cartilage of the SAM P/6 mouse, a model of osteoporosis and other aging, change. We also examined ³H-thymidine incorporation of the cartilage to determine the ablilty of DNA Synthesis.
No fibrillation on the femoral head and mandibular head of any of the young mice (9 weeks) could be seen.
In older mouse (55 week), all mandibular heads had fibrillation, and some of them had progressive denudation of the underlying bony cortex. On the other hand femoral heads had no such changes.
³H-thymidine incorporation of the young mice was higher then that of older mouse. Also femoral heads were higher than mandibular heads in ³H-thymidine incorporation.