In this section
- Collagen Aids Fight Against Osteoarthritis - Go Healthy, Autumn, 2004
- My knee is so much better - Woman, August 16, 2004
- Take supplements - Woman's Weekly, July 6, 2004
- How a collagen pill can beat arthritis - Daily Mail, Tuesday, August 5, 2003
- Nutritional Intervention for Joint Health - Berlin, Germany, October 17, 2003
- Impact of Collagen Fragments on the Extracellular Matrix Metabolism - Steffen Oesser, PhD, Surgical Research Department of General Surgery and Thoracic Surgery, University of Kiel, Germany
- The Role of Nutrition In Joint Health - Kristine Clark, PhD, RD, FACSM, Director of Sports Nutrition, Penn State Orthopedics, The Pennsylvania State University
- Joint Health and Osteoarthritis: The Facts.
- New highlights from research on gelatine - Natural prevention of osteoarthritis possible - Eberbach, Germany, April 22, 2003.
- Champneys Magazine Ad - Summer 2004
Impact of Collagen Fragments on the Extracellular Matrix Metabolism
Steffen Oesser, PhD
Surgical Research
Department of General Surgery and Thoracic Surgery
University of Kiel,
Germany
Consensus exists that the therapeutic goal of causal treatment of osteoarthritiscan only occur by targeting chondrocyte metabolism to counteract the catabolic processes taking place in the joint cartilage. In principle, two therapeutic concepts are conceivable: inhibiting the degradation of the structural macromolecules in the extra-cellular matrix (ECM) or stimulating the biosynthesis of cartilage cells to compensate for pathologically caused degradation of the ECM.
Experimental investigations have demonstrated intestinal absorption of collagen hydrolysate (CH) in its high molecular form with peptides up to 10kDa as well as a preferential accumulation of these CH derived fragments in cartilage tissue (Oesser et al. 1999).
In recent studies the influence of CH on the metabolism of mature chondrocytes has been investigated in a primary cell culture model (Oesser and Seifert 2003). It was shown that the presence of CH in the culture medium led to a dose-dependent increase in type II collagen biosynthesis, whereas native collagen as well as collagen-free hydrolysates failed to stimulate the production of type II collagen in chondrocytes. These results clearly indicate a stimulatory effect of CH on the type II collagen biosynthesis of chondrocytes and suggest a possible mechanism for the regulation of collagen turnover in cartilage tissue.
Moreover, utilizing immunocytochemical methods, it was demonstrated that in addition to an enhanced sythesis of type II collagen in chondrocytes treated with CH, the amount of pericellular aggrecan was significantly increased as well, indicating that the stimulated cells synthesise a complete extracellular matrix.
Based on these results CH might be of particular importance for the nutrition of cartilage tissue and might help to reduce degenerative alterations in the ECM.
Literature
Oesser, et al. Oral administration of 14C labelled gelatine hydrlysateleads to an accumulation of radioactivity in cartilage of mice. Journal of Nutrition 1999; 129: 1891-1895.
Oesser, Seifert. Stimulation of type II collagen biosynthesis and secretionin bovine chondrocytes cultured with degraded collagen. Cell & Tissue Research 2003; 311:393-399.
Speaker Biography
Steffen Oesser, PhD
Surgical Research
Department of General Surgery
and Thoracic Surgery
University of Kiel, Germany
Steffen Oesser studied biology and chemistry at the University of Kiel in Germany. As a Scientific Assistant at the Institute for Physiology of the University of Kiel, he initially concentrated on the areas of cell physiology and protein chemistry. Since 1993, Dr Oesser has been active in medical research at the Schleswig-Holstein Hospital. Subsequent to his doctoral theses on the influencing of chondrocyte metabolism, he has been principally involved in researching the pathophysiology of osteoarthritis and the development of new therapy possibilities for the treatment of degenerative disease of joint cartilage.
