Fig. 1.

Region-dependent strain response under uniaxial unconfined compression. (A) Representative displacement profile of the insertion site under microcompression. Nonlinear displacement was found, decreasing in magnitude from nonmineralized (NFC) to mineralized fibrocartilage (MFC) and to bone. Axial compressive strain for the femoral (B) and tibial insertion regions (C). The strain experienced by the NFC is consistently higher than the MFC, and this difference was significant for the femoral insertion at 15% and 20% strain (*, P < 0.05).