Aggrecan and matrix sulfation
Why cartilage holds water, how sulfate gets onto the sugar chains that make it happen, and what goes wrong with height when that chemistry fails.
Most of a growth plate is the matrix the chondrocytes secrete rather than the cells themselves, and that matrix is mostly water held by fixed charge. Aggrecan carries long chains of sulfated sugars, each sulfate and carboxyl group a fixed negative charge that cannot diffuse away. Those charges pull in counter-ions, the ions bring water with them, and the tissue swells.
In this article
- When the core protein fails
- When sulfation fails
- Compounds
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