Mohd Razak Rusydi, Harizal Nur Arina Amira, Azman Mohammad Ali Zuhdi, Mohd Redzuan Najwa Syakirah, Ogaili Raed H, Kamarrudin Ahmad Hafiz, Mohamad Azmi Muhammad Fakhrullah, Kamaruddin Nur Aqilah, Abdul Jamil Aminatul Saadiah, Mokhtar Sabarul Afian, Mohd Isa Isma Liza
Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.
Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia.
Polymers (Basel). 2024 Sep 11;16(18):2574. doi: 10.3390/polym16182574.
Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration is one of the primary causes of low back pain, causing disability; hence, there is no regenerative nature of the current treatments. Hyaluronic acid (HA) was reported to facilitate tissue repair and alleviate pain. Herein, we determined the therapeutic effect of HA and type II collagen (COLII) hydrogel for tissue repair targeting pain in IVD degeneration. We implanted HA/COLII hydrogel following surgically induced disc injury at coccygeal levels in the rat tail model of pain. We assessed the efficacy of the HA/COLII hydrogel in reducing pain behaviour by using the von Frey assessment, protein expression of growth-associated protein (GAP) 43 for sensory nerve innervation, and disc hydration by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We observed the anti-nociceptive effect of the HA/COLII hydrogel in alleviating mechanical allodynia in rats. There was an inhibition of sensory hyperinnervation indicated by the GAP43 protein in the treatment group. We revealed an increase in T1ρ mapping of MRI, indicating that the hydrogel restored disc hydration in vivo. Our findings suggest the HA/COLII hydrogel alleviates pain behaviour, inhibits hyperinnervation and promotes disc hydration for tissue repair, implying that it is a potential candidate for the treatment of degenerative disc-associated low back pain.
椎间盘（IVD）退变是下腰痛的主要原因之一，会导致残疾；因此，目前的治疗方法没有再生特性。据报道，透明质酸（HA）有助于组织修复并减轻疼痛。在此，我们确定了HA和II型胶原蛋白（COLII）水凝胶对椎间盘退变中针对疼痛的组织修复的治疗效果。在大鼠尾部疼痛模型的尾骨水平进行手术诱导的椎间盘损伤后，我们植入了HA/COLII水凝胶。我们通过使用von Frey评估、感觉神经支配的生长相关蛋白（GAP）43的蛋白表达以及磁共振成像（MRI）评估椎间盘水合作用，来评估HA/COLII水凝胶在减轻疼痛行为方面的功效。我们观察到HA/COLII水凝胶在减轻大鼠机械性异常性疼痛方面具有抗伤害感受作用。治疗组中GAP43蛋白表明感觉神经超支配受到抑制。我们发现MRI的T1ρ映射增加，表明水凝胶在体内恢复了椎间盘水合作用。我们的研究结果表明，HA/COLII水凝胶可减轻疼痛行为，抑制神经超支配并促进椎间盘水合作用以进行组织修复，这意味着它是治疗退行性椎间盘相关性下腰痛的潜在候选物。
