Vol. 283, Issue 6, H2485-H2494, December 2002
Relationship between lymph and tissue hyaluronan in skin and
skeletal muscle
Shayn E.
Armstrong and
Donald R.
Bell
Center for Cardiovascular Sciences, Albany Medical College,
Albany, New York 12208-3479
The size of hyaluronan was compared
between tissue and lymph using a combination of agarose gel
electrophoresis and radiometric assay. Prenodal lymph was collected
from heel skin and the gastrocnemius muscle in anesthetized
rabbits. The major fraction of hyaluronan in both tissues had a
molecular weight >4 million. Lymph contained primarily
low-molecular-weight hyaluronan (<0.79 × 106),
which was absent from tissue. Volume loading produced a preferential increase in the flux of low-molecular-weight hyaluronan, indicating that tissue contains a small quantity of mobile, low-molecular-weight hyaluronan. The maximum daily removal of hyaluronan by lymph was <1%
of the tissue content. The amount of lysosomal hyaluronidase activity
in tissue was more than enough to account for a rapid turnover of
hyaluronan. The data support the conclusion that lymph drainage is not
significant in the normal catabolism of hyaluronan and may represent a
small amount that becomes detached from the pericellular and
extracellular matrixes.
extracellular matrix; hyaluronan catabolism; hyaluronidase
activity; molecular weight
