Quality Assessment of Surgical Disc Samples Discriminates Human Annulus Fibrosus and Nucleus Pulposus on Tissue and Molecular Level.

ABSTRACT: A discrimination of the highly specialised annulus fibrosus (AF) and nucleus pulposus (NP) cells in the mature human intervertebral disc (IVD) is thus far still not possible in a reliable way. The aim of this study was to identify molecular markers that distinguish AF and NP cells in human disc tissue using microarray analysis as a screening tool. AF and NP samples were obtained from 28 cervical discs. First, all samples underwent quality sorting using two novel scoring systems for small-sized disc tissue samples including macroscopic, haptic and histological evaluation. Subsequently, samples with clear disc characteristics of either AF or NP that were free from impurities of foreign tissue (IVD score) and with low signs of disc degeneration on cellular level (DD score) were selected for G

SUBMITTER: Schubert AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6032144 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature