Biomechanical overloading initiates intervertebral disc degeneration. We hypothesized that this is due to mechanosensitivity of the cells, which break down the extracellular matrix. Previously, we found that overloading in a loaded disc culture system causes upregulation of remodeling- and inflammatory gene expressions. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy is a novel technique to identify, visualize and quantify ECM. In this research, we first identified novel spectroscopic markers for disc degeneration, and then applied these markers to investigate the first steps into disc degeneration by overloading.

In dataset 1, 18 discs of 9 goats were injected with chondroitinase ABC (degenerated) or not (control), and obducted 3 months after injection. This was used to find new spectroscopic markers for degeneration. In dataset 2, 42 goat discs were loaded with a physiological loading regime (50–150N) or overloading (50–400N) in a loaded disc culture system. In 18 of these discs, the cell activity was diminished in advance by freeze-thaw cycles and culturing on saline alone (non-vital group)). 24 additional discs were cultured in culture medium immediately post-mortem (vital group). Thereby, we are able to control whether the effect of the overloading is due to cell activity. The discs were fixed in formaldehyde, and 4 μm mid-sagittal were mounted to steel reflectance slides. Infrared spectroscopic mosaic images (23 × 57 images) were collected in transflectance mode at a spectral region of 1025–1150 cm⁻¹. Data was pre-processed by second derivative transformation and MCR-MALS with two factors.

The two factors were transferable between datasets, confirming the reliability. The first factor represents proteoglycans, as confirmed by Saffrin-O staining. In dataset 1, the degenerated group had less proteoglycan factor overall, especially in the nucleus (p<0.05). The second factor was found to have a lower entropy (p<0.01), showing a disorganization in the matrix. In dataset 2, no significant reduction in proteoglycan was found due to overloading in any group. However, the entropy was lower in the overloaded vital group (p<0.05), but not in the overloaded non-vital group (p>0.5).

Therefore, we conclude that infrared spectroscopy is a promising tool to investigate early disc degeneration. Overloading can cause changes in the extracellular matrix, but only due to cell activity. Entropy is an early marker for early disc degeneration, implying that cutting of the extracellular matrix by cell activity is the first step into intervertebral disc degeneration.