Abstract
Chondrons have recently been extracted from adult articular cartilages and techniques developed to study their structure and composition in isolation. This study introduces methods to immobilize isolated canine chondrons in thin layers of agarose gel for immunohistochemistry and future in vitro studies. An antibody to Type VI collagen which stained the chondron in suspension was used to successfully validate the system and its feasibility for immunoelectron microscopy. Monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies to a variety of epitopes on the proteoglycan molecule were tested on fresh and fixed plugs cored from chondron-agarose gels. Plugs were immunolabeled with peroxidase-diaminobenzidine before or after digestion with testicular hyaluronidase or chondroitinase ABC. Trypsin/chymotrypsin were used to challenge epitopes of the core protein. The results indicate that epitopes to keratan sulfate, chondroitin sulfate, hyaluronate binding region, and core protein are localized in the chondron. Consistent staining was found in the tail and interconnecting segments between chondrons, whereas staining of the pericellular matrix and capsule adjacent to the chondrocyte varied according to the enzyme pre-treatment employed. We conclude that isolated chondrons are rich in proteoglycan monomer, which is particularly concentrated in the tail and interconnecting segments of the chondron where it could function to protect and stabilize the chondrocyte.