Structural features of articular cartilage in female Wistar rats with chronic heart failure and obesity

Purpose was to study structural and functional characteristics of articular cartilage in female Wistar rats after reproducing experimental osteoarthritis (OA) using the author’s method. The experiment was performed on 10 female Wistar rats 8 months old, and covered control and experimental groups (n=5). Experimental animals were given a course of injections of 1% 0.1 ml mesatone solution for 2 weeks, followed by swimming, then the animals were placed in cramped cages for 2 months with high-calorie nutrition. When experiment was finished, histopathological study of knee articular cartilage in rats was performed using histochemical and morphometric methods. In animals with vascular-and-metabolic disorders, structural and functional reorganization of cartilage was observed. There were zonal composition loss, chondrocytes hypertrophy and clustering, cell’s apoptosis with empty lacunae forming, a decrease in metachromasia of extracellular matrix, damage to tidemark, defibration and damage to cartilage surface with decrease in its ave­rage thickness. When compared with the results of OA modeling in previous series of experiments, it was revealed that male rats were more susceptible to the disease compared to females. Thus, when chronic heart failure and obesity are reproduced in female Wistar rats, degenerative-and-dystrophic changes corresponding to early OA develop in cartilage tissue of knee joints. The structural and functional characteristics of articular cartilage were determined depending on the sex of animals.