Proteoglycans of the Intervertebral Disc

摘要: Proteoglycans are present within the extracellular matrix (ECM) of intervertebral disc and on surface its cells. The possesses many proteoglycans, with most also being in hyaline cartilages. best studied these aggrecan versican (members hyalectan/lectican family) decorin, biglycan, fibromodulin, lumican, PRELP, chondroadherin small leucine-rich repeat protein/SLRP family). More recently, has been shown to contain perlecan lubricin, which were previously thought be characteristic basement membranes articular cartilage, respectively. Much less is known about cell-associated though it likely that several members syndecan (Tkachenko et al. 2005) glypican (Fransson 2004) families will present, together other unrelated proteoglycans such as NG2 (Akeda 2007; Stallcup 2002). While little concerning specific function disc, syndecan-4 expression increased when elevated levels interleukin-1 (IL-1) or tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) (Wang 2011), may play a role promoting aggrecanase-mediated proteolysis disc. However, due scarcity information this chapter focus particular aggrecan.