Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: A human synovial tendon-on-a-chip models key features of peritendinous adhesions and offers a new approach methodology for testing anti-fibrotic drugs
doi: 10.64898/2026.04.03.716316
Figure Lengend Snippet: Tocilizumab and tofacitinib attenuate synovial JAK/STAT activation, collagen III deposition, and fibronectin-mediated synovial-tendon adhesions. a, Drug treatment strategy and experimental timeline for the synToC drug testing scheme, outlining the mechanisms and timing of tocilizumab (TCZ) and tofacitinib (TOFA) dosing. b, Nuclear pSTAT3 expression in the synovial gel, with c, quantification demonstrating a significant reduction in pSTAT3 immunofluorescence with TOFA treatment. d, Quantification and representative images of tendon hydrogel contraction from Days 0-5, plotted as the percent of original hydrogel area. t-test at each time point: n=4 devices, *p<0.05. e, Monocyte transmigration at Day 2, reported as the number of monocytes transmigrated per unit volume. f, Secreted cytokine levels measured from Day 5 supernatants sampled from the apical (vascular) and basal (tendon) compartments. One-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post-hoc test: n=4 devices per condition, *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001. g, Immunofluorescent confocal images at Day 5 of synToC culture, with collagen III (green), Hoechst (blue), and F-actin (red). Images compare an untreated control group to TCZ and TOFA treatments. Quantification of the number of collagen III+ cells in the h, synovial gel (SG) and i, tendon (T). TCZ significantly attenuated collagen III expression in the synovial gel, while both treatments significantly decreased collagen III expression in the tendon. One-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post-hoc test: n=8 devices per condition, **p<0.01. j, Confocal image reconstructions of Day 5 synToC devices, showing a top-down view (top row) and a side view (bottom row). Devices were stained for fibronectin (yellow), Hoechst (blue), and F-actin (red) to compare fibronectin adhesion contacts between untreated and treated devices at Day 5. k, Quantification of adhesion contact length. Both TCZ and TOFA treatment significantly reduced the formation of fibronectin contacts between the synovial and tendon gels. One-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post-hoc test: n=12 devices per condition, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001. l, Total cell density in the synovial gel, reported as the number of cells/mm 3 . Untreated synToC devices had a significantly greater number of cells in the synovial gel compared to drug-treated devices. One-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post-hoc test: n=5 devices per condition, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001.
Article Snippet: A Surface was generated for fibronectin immunofluorescence signal in Imaris.
Techniques: Activation Assay, Expressing, Immunofluorescence, Transmigration Assay, Control, Staining