Amy Byrne
School of Medicine
Tenocyte driven immunomodulation
The main function of tendon is facilitating the transmission of loads from muscle to bone . They are dynamic , responsive , structures that can respond to force , frequency , direction , duration of mechanical loads by complex cellular signaling and the highly specialized extracellular matrix . Recent immunohistochemical studies clearly show that inflammatory cells are present in early tendinopathy . Direct stimulation of tenocytes with cytokines has been used but studies are limited to using mixed tenocyte sources and focusing on changes on a genetic level . We hypothesize that tenocytes possess stem-cell like properties and have the ability to modulate the immune response . This work uses an established THP-1 cell line activation model to assess the effects of tendon conditioned media on the proliferation and morphology of the activated and inactivated THP-1 cells . This will be done by identifying the specific macrophages and monocytes present in both conditioned media and non-conditioned media . We found that tenocyte conditioned media was able to modulate THP-1 cells when compared to normal growth media . We also found that Teoncytes conditioned media contains significantly more protein than normal growth media .
Postgraduate Conference 2020 Page 15