Abstract
Skeletal muscle fibrosis is characterized by increases in tissue stiffness and collagen content. However, a very weak correlation exists between collagen content and stiffness in skeletal muscle. Recently, it has been hypothesized that collagen crosslinking explains tissue stiffness in fibrotic skeletal muscle. Therefore, we addressed this hypothesis by correlating tissue stiffness with lysyl-pyridinoline, hydroxylysyl-pyridinoline, and pentosidine collagen crosslinks. Stepwise regression revealed that, separate or together, collagen crosslinks did not correlate with tissue stiffness. Our result demonstrates that increased tissue stiffness in skeletal muscle fibrosis is not simply explained by increased collagen crosslinks and/or collagen crosslink density. We suggest that collagen organization may affect tissue stiffness.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 375-378 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Journal of Biomechanics |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 21 2015 |
Funding
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers AR061303 & T32AR0607 and by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under Award Number HD050837 . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health . We also acknowledge the National Science Foundation for an NSF-Graduate Research Fellowship to MAC.
Keywords
- Collagen crosslinking
- Extracellular matrix
- Fibrosis
- Mechanical properties
- Muscle
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biophysics
- Rehabilitation
- Biomedical Engineering
- Orthopedics and Sports Medicine