Figure 4.
Nanomechanical properties of ECM of degenerated human meniscal tissue removed from patients with severe OA undergoing total knee arthroplasty. (A) Histopathology of all three OA samples show a more intense Safranin-O staining (in purple) associated with severe matrix degenerative changes in the ECM. Scale bar = 1 mm. (B) Corresponding elastic moduli distributions with multi-peak Gaussian curve fits (in red) demonstrate a significant increase in stiffness with broadened bimodal distributions (in green) and increased nanomechanical heterogeneity across regions (from outer to inner, left to right).