Boundary Lubrication of Synovial Fluid Molecules and Its Effect on the Surrounding Cells and Tissues

Patients suffering from serious arthritis may receive the artificial joint replacement surgery. Comparing to the articulation of articular cartilage, the artificial joint undergo a boundary lubrication in which a thin layer of synovial fluid molecules is formed between the artificial joint materials. Therefore a larger wear rate is observed in the artificial joint system. Researchers have devoted themselves to modifying the artificial joint materials in order to reduce the wear phenomena. We first propose that modification the lubrication by adding effective lubricating molecules may help to reduce the wear of artificial joint. However, there still lacks fundamentally understanding of the artificial joint lubrication mechanism under synovial fluid. Hence, we plan to investigate the boundary lubrication mechanism of synovial molecules, such as albumin, globulin, hyaluronic acid, and lipid in the first year. We would like to obtain the adsorption behaviors of the single molecules as well as multiple molecules on the surfaces of artificial joint materials by experiments. Molecular dynamics simulation will also be performed to gain the knowledge of adsorption energy and possible conformation change of the molecules. In the second year, the tribological heat and mechanical effects on the synovial molecules will be studied. The analysis platform will be established to perform the composition and properties measurement of the synovial molecules. In the third year, we will further discuss the effect of the synovial molecules transformation on the surrounding cells and tissues. Their influences on the tribological and biochemical behaviors will be investigated.