Degradation of proteoglycans in human osteoarthritic cartilage

New ultramicro modifications of a hypertonic salt extraction and purification schemes for proteoglycans were applied to the study of proteoglycans in discolored marginal lesions cartilage of patients with osteoarthritis, and the results were compared to a control group of normal appearing cartilage samples from the same patients or from patients with relatively noninflammatory diseases involving the lower extremities. Histologic studies of portions of the same sample used for chemical analysis revealed only minor morphologic changes without leukocytic infiltration. Considerable aberrations from control bovine nasal cartilages were exhibited by normal human articular cartilage samples in respect to the proteoglycan fractionation. Additional abberations of behavior in respect to proteoglycan fractionation were observed in samples of osteoarthritic cartilage and samples from patients with vascular necrosis. Accelerated degradation of proteoglycans with probable alteration of synthetic pathways was postulated to explain these findings.