Demonstrating collagen tendon fibril segments involvement in intrinsic tendon repair

Sprague W. Hazard, Roland L. Myers, H. Paul Ehrlich

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Severed tendons can undergo regenerative healing, intrinsic tendon repair. Fibrillogenesis of chick tendon involves "collagen fibril segments" (CFS), which are the building blocks of collagen fibers that make up tendon fascicles. The CFS are 10.5 micron in length, composed of tropocollagen monomers arranged in parallel arrays. Rather than incorporating single tropocollagen molecules into growing collagen fibers, incorporating large CFS units is the mechanism for generating collagen fibers. Is intrinsic tendon repair through the reestablishment of tendon embryogenesis? Gentamicin treated 10-day-old chick embryo tendons released CFS were fluorescently tagged with Rhodamine (Rh). Organ cultured severed 14-day-old embryo tendon explants received Rh tagged CFS. At day 4 auto fluorescent tagged CFS were identified at the severed tendon ends by fluorescent microscopy. Accumulation of fluorescent tagged CFS was exclusively localized to the severed ends of tendon explants. Parallels between collagen fiber growth during embryonic fibrillogenesis and tendon repair reveal CFS incorporation is responsible for collagen fibers growth. CFS incorporation into frayed collagen fibers from severed tendons is the proposed mechanism for intrinsic tendon repair, which is an example of regenerative repair.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)660-663
Number of pages4
JournalExperimental and Molecular Pathology
Volume91
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2011

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Pathology and Forensic Medicine
  • Molecular Biology
  • Clinical Biochemistry

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