Mankind As A Whole Disc In Alginate Culture

Study Design. We entrapped a human fetus intervertebral disc with end-plate in alginate gel and measured the amount of proteoglycans in pulposus.Objectives. To establish an in vitro culture system to study the feasibility of culture of the intervertebral disc as a whole integral organ.Summary of Background Data. In vitro studies of culture of intervertebral discs have been scarce because of the difficulties involved in maintaining the integrity of the tissues, especially that of the nucleus pulposus in culture medium. At present, there is no report of culture of human intervrtebral discs with end-plate.Methods. Human fetus intervertebral discs with end-plate were embedded in alginate gel and maintained in culture for as long as 2 weeks. At weekly intervals, experiments were performed to measure the amount of proteoglycans in nucleus pulposus. Intervertebral discs cultured in medium alone and intervertebral discs without end-plate embedded in alginate gel were used as controls and analyzed in parallel.Results. The nucleus pulposus of intervertebral discs with end-plate cultured in alginate gel had a higher amount of proteoglycans than respective controls at all time.Conclusions. This culture system should prove useful for studying the metabolism of whole intervertebral discs and the culture of human intervertebral discs is feasible.