Study of the effect of a glycosaminoglycan-peptide complex on the degradative enzyme activities in human osteoarthritic cartilage.

The in vitro collagenolytic and proteoglycanasic activity from human fibrillated osteoarthritic cartilage was determined using labelled proteoglycans and type II collagen as substrates. In vitro, a glycosaminoglycan-peptide complex (GP-C Rumalon) induced a dose-dependent inhibition of both collagenolytic and proteoglycanasic activities while sodium salicylate and indomethacin had only a weak suppressive effect on proteoglycanase. Phospholipase A2 activity was unmodified by GP-C suggesting that the effect of the drug on degradative enzymes was unrelated to prostaglandin formation.