PMID: 9533083Apr 9, 1998Paper

Cell death in avian tibial dyschondroplasia

Avian Diseases
N C RathJ M Balog

Abstract

Tibial dyschondroplasia (TD) is a local defect of growth plates in fast-growing poultry where the transitional zone cartilage fails to resorb and persists as an avascular plug that prevents endochondral bone formation. We compared the differences in the cartilages from normal and TD-affected growth plates using the reduction of MTS to assess cartilage viability. Chondrocyte apoptosis was determined using biochemical measurement of DNA fragmentation, and in situ labeling of nuclei with fluorescein-dUTP using terminal deoxynucleotide transferase (TdT)-mediated nick end labeling (TUNEL) of isolated chondrocytes and growth plate sections. The TD-affected cartilage showed a significantly lower level of MTS reduction and a decrease in trichloroacetic acid (TCA)-precipitable DNA content. The TD cartilages had a higher percentage of fragmented DNA, which was also evident with agarose gel electrophoresis. A significantly higher number of chondrocytes isolated from TD-affected cartilages had condensed morphology, shrunken nuclei with little cytoplasm, and were TUNEL positive as identified by the incorporation of fluorescein-dUTP into the nuclei. In vivo results similarly showed a significant population of chondrocytes in transition zones...Continue Reading

Related Concepts

Related Feeds

Cardiomyopathy

Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle, that can lead to muscular or electrical dysfunction of the heart. It is often an irreversible disease that is associated with a poor prognosis. There are different causes and classifications of cardiomyopathies. Here are the latest discoveries pertaining to this disease.

Apoptosis

Apoptosis is a specific process that leads to programmed cell death through the activation of an evolutionary conserved intracellular pathway leading to pathognomic cellular changes distinct from cellular necrosis