Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Studies of limb ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury was developed relatively later, and most of these focused on soft tissues such as skeletal muscle and nerves. The damage of articular cartilage during limb IR injury is rarely reported both in China and abroad.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the expression of tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) in articular cartilage at different time points of limbs IR injury.

METHODS: SD rats were randomly divided into the sham-operated, ischemia 6 h, and IR groups (1, 3, 7, 14, 30, and 60 d). Rats were established for limb IR models. The grouped rats were killed at each time point, respectively. The articular cartilages were excised from the medial of the left keen joints. The pathological changes of articular cartilage were observed by hematoxylin-eosin staining, and the expression of TNF-α was detected by immunohistochemistry. 

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Under light microscope, cartilage cells lightly swelled at 7 days after reperfusion and got worse with time prolonged. In the sham-operated group, positive TNF-α was weak expressed and increased in the ischemia 6 h group, peaked in the IR 3 d, 7 d groups and then began to decrease. There were significant differences between the IR 60 d group and the sham-operated group (P < 0.05). All results demonstrated that limb IR injury could cause the injury of articular cartilage. Increasing TNF-α played an important role in the articular cartilage after limb IR injury.