Institution: The University of Oxford
Investigators: Dr Afsie Sabokbar, Dr Guillaume Mabilleau, Dr D Mahoney
Stream: Research Fellowship
Topic: Lower Limbs/Biology (Hip)
Status: Completed
Metal-on-Metal (MoM) bearings were reintroduced as an alternative to standard metal-on-polyethylene (MoP) to reduce the osteolysis associated with polyethylene wear particles. However, it has recently been shown that serum concentrations of Co and Cr ions are markedly increased in patients with MoM as compared to control. More recently, it has been shown that a significant decrease in the number of CD8+ cytotoxic T-cells in MoM patients was noted compared to healthy and MoP. The impact of such concentrations of metal ions on bone resorbing cells, osteoclasts and bone forming cells, osteoblasts is still unknown.
We have already reported the effect of different concentrations of metal ions on osteoclast precursors - different concentration. We have noticed a decrease in the extent of lacunar resorption with these 3 different metal ions (Ni2+, Cr3+ or Co2+), except for Cr3+ at high concentration. It is interesting to notice that Co2+ increase the number and size of newly-generated osteoclast as we reported earlier but inhibit the extent of lacunar resorption.
We have investigated the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the cell culture supernatant after 24 hrs & 48 hrs of culture with metal ions to determine if our osteoblastic cell line were capable of releasing inflammatory cytokines, we have simulated them with LPS a constituent of the bacteria wall of Gram negative bacteria, already known to induce the release of inflammatory cytokines in vitro. Our data suggested that after 24 hrs & 48 hrs of stimulation with Ni2+, Cr3+ or Co2+, osteoblasts did not release detectable levels of inflammatory cytokines in the cell culture supernatant.
« Back to research projects
