Figure 5. The influence of physiological load on proteoglycan synthesis in trypsin-treated discs.

Proteoglycan content was evaluated by the DMMB assay in NP tissue of loaded and unloaded IVDs after 14 days of culture. The IVDs were injected with 0, 10 or 100 µg trypsin prior to loading. Proteoglycan content was normalized to tissue weight (n 6, error bars represent SEM) *p<0.05, **p<0.001.