Effects of a pulsed electromagnetic field on a mixed chondroblastic tissue culture

A mixed tissue culture predominantly composed of chondroblastic tissue was perturbed by a pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF). Some cultures were nonconfluent, and purposely retarded in growth to resemble an atrophic nonunion, while others were grown to confluence in about one-half the time as a model for a hypertrophic nonunion. These two groups tested the effect of growth rate upon the products of cell proliferation and differentiation. The slowly growing cultures were stimulated to synthesize hydroxyproline. The rapidly growing cultures showed a large increase in lysozyme activity, and increase in hyaluronate and DNA, and a decrease in glycosaminoglycan. Exogenous lysozyme further decreased the glycosaminoglycan synthesis in the presence of PEMF. Chitotriose, a specific lysozyme inhibitor abolished this effect. Cycloheximide, a protein synthesis inhibitor, did not abolish the activation of lysozyme found in the matrix. Thus lysozyme appears to be activated by PEMF. These observations of the rapidly growing confluent cultures are consistent with events described in the normal healing of a bone fracture or endochrondral growth. Thus, PEMF appears to promote normal healing, probably by altering cartilaginous lysozyme activity in the matrix, and possibly the sequence of events leading to calcification.