A commercially available sandwich ELISA (
Hyaluronan DuoSet ELISA,
R&D Systems, Minneapolis, USA) was used to quantify HA concentration in
synovial fluid. This assay utilizes recombinant human aggrecan as the HA
capture reagent and biotinylated recombinant human aggrecan to detect bound
HA using streptavidin conjugated to horseradish peroxidase. Synovial fluid
samples from all horses at all time points were diluted 1:80,000 in 5% Tween
20 in PBS and measured in duplicate. Absorbance was measured at 450nm with
wavelength correction set at 540nm. HA MW distribution was determined by gel
electrophoresis as previously described
29 (link). Briefly, synovial fluid samples were diluted (1:20
in PBS) and treated overnight with
proteinase K (Roche Applied Science,
Mannheim, Germany) prior to electrophoresis (50V for 8 hours) on a 1%
agarose gel. HiLadder (0.5–1.5 MDa) and Mega-HA Ladder
(1.5–6.1 MDa) (Amsbio LLC, Cambridge, MA) were used for MW reference.
Gels were stained with 0.005%
Stains-All (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO) in
50% ethanol, then de-stained with a 10% ethanol solution prior to image
acquisition (Bio-Rad
VersaDoc Imaging System, Hercules, CA). Where
necessary, gel images were combined using the Stitching plugin
30 (link) prior to quantification of
band intensity with ImageJ software
31 (link).
Peal B.T., Gagliardi R., Su J., Fortier L.A., Delco M.L., Nixon A.J, & Reesink H.L. (2020). Synovial Fluid Lubricin and Hyaluronan are Altered in Equine Osteochondral Fragmentation, Cartilage Impact Injury and Full-Thickness Cartilage Defect Models. Journal of orthopaedic research : official publication of the Orthopaedic Research Society, 38(8), 1826-1835.