Volume 4, Number 1, p. 22–24
I. Mesropyan1, M. Kakauridze2 and J. Monaselidze1
Temperature steadiness of femoral cartilaginous tissue of patients: a microcalorimetric investigation
Studies of femoral cartilaginous and skin tissues of healthy and sick patients were carried out by the method of differential scanning microcalorimetry (DSC). It was shown that the denaturation process in all cases was characterized by one intensive heat absorption peak at 50–60 °C and diffusive heat absorption in the range 80–120 °C. The denaturation enthalpies of normal and pathological tissue were determined. They are equal to 52.3 ± 2.5 and 49.7 ± 2.5 J/(g dry biomass), respectively. It was shown that the stability of pathologic cartilaginous tissue was lower relative to normal tissue by 5.0 ± 1.0 °C. It was established that collagen stability in tissue depends on the age of the patients. It was inferred that the decrease of pathological tissue thermostability relative to that of normal tissue was connected with the pathological tissue’s ability to contain more free water and that the increase of thermostability depended on age with the formation of additional intramolecular crosslinks.
Keywords: collagen, DSC, femoral cartilaginous tissue, intramolecular crosslinks