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A fiber matrix model for fluid flow and streaming potentials in the canaliculi of an osteon

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Abstract

A theoretical model is developed to predict the fluid shear stress and streaming potential at the surface of osteocytic processes in the lacunar-canalicular porosity of an osteon when the osteon is subject to mechanical loads that are parallel or perpendicular to its axis. The theory developed in Weinbaumet al. (31) for the flow through a proteoglycan matrix in a canaliculus is employed in a poroelastic model for the osteon. Our formulation is a generalization of that of Petrovet al. (17). Our model predicts that, in order to satisfy the measured frequency dependence of the phase and magnitude of the SGP in macroscopic bone samples, the fiber spacing in the fluid annulus must lie in the narrow range 6–7 nm typical of the spacing of GAG sidechains along a protein monomer. The model predictions for the local SGP profiles in the osteon agree with the experimental observations of Starkebaumet al. (24). The theory predicts that the pore pressure relaxation time, τd, for a 150–300 μm diameter osteon with the foregoing matrix structure is approximately 0.03–0.13 sec, and that the amplitude of the mean fluid shear stress on the membrane of the osteocytic process at the mean areal radius of the osteon has a maximum at 28 Hz if τd = 0.06 sec. This maximum, which is independent of the magnitude of the loading, could be importantin vivo since the recent experiments of Turneret al. (28) and McLeodet al. (15) have a peak in the strain frequency spectrum between 20 and 30 Hz that also appears to be independent of the type (magnitude) of loading. Numerical predictions for the amplitude of the average fluid shear stress on the osteocytic membrane at the mean areal radius of the osteon show that the fluid shear stress associated with the low amplitude 20–30 Hz spectral strain component is at least as large as the average fluid shear stress associated with the high amplitude 1 Hz stride component, although the latter loading is an order of magnitude larger, and has a magnitude that lies within the middle of the range, 6–30 dynes/cm2, where fluid shear stresses in tissue culture studies with osteoblast monolayers have elicited an intracellular Ca++ response (31). The implications of these results for intracellular electrical communication are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The City College of the City University of New York, 10031, New York, NY

    Y. Zeng, S. C. Cowin & S. Weinbaum

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  1. Y. Zeng
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  2. S. C. Cowin
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  3. S. Weinbaum
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Zeng, Y., Cowin, S.C. & Weinbaum, S. A fiber matrix model for fluid flow and streaming potentials in the canaliculi of an osteon. Ann Biomed Eng 22, 280–292 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02368235

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