## 1 Introduction  
The menisci of the knee are fixed by ligamentous attachments that retain them in the intra-articular zone while allowing the necessary mobility (up to 10 mm [1]) to be placed between the tibia and femur at the contact area, which shifts during flexion-extension. The meniscal roots are the only ligamentous attachments with direct insertion into the bone, playing a crucial role in meniscal function. Complete meniscal root avulsion has been shown to cause significant changes in the contact biomechanics of the knee, increasing pressure and decreasing the contact area on the cartilage of the affected compartment, changes that may be similar to those observed for total meniscectomy [2; 3; 4]. Biomedical studies have also highlighted the role of meniscal roots as secondary stabilizers of knee kinematics, contributing to the restriction of anteroposterior translation and internal-external rotation [5; 6; 7]. From a clinical point of view, a meniscal root detachment can lead to the rapid development of arthritis [8] or osteonecrosis [9] as a consequence of biomechanical alterations. The surgical treatment of meniscal root avulsions has currently evolved from partial meniscectomy to meniscal root reinsertion [10]. The surgical repair can be performed using two techniques: transtibial [11; 12] or in situ fixation [4; 13]. In both approaches, sutures are passed through the horn of the injured meniscus to hold it in place. Some research studies have subjected sutured meniscal horn specimens to in vitro tests to evaluate the performance of surgical suture materials [14; 15; 16; 17], the effectiveness of suture techniques [12; 18; 19; 20; 21], the validity of suturing or fixation devices [21; 22; 23; 24], and the suitability of surgical approaches [18; 25; 26; 27]. Both the resistance of the meniscal horn to suture traction without tear initiation and deformation at the suture area are assessed in these studies. Knowledge of the resistance to traction of the repaired meniscus is important in preventing the failure of surgical intervention, while monitoring post-repair displacements generated by suture traction is needed to ensure that they remain within clinically acceptable limits [28]. Porcine models are often chosen in experimental constructs [12; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 21; 23; 26; 27; 28; 29] because of their reduced variability and their similarities with human menisci in terms of anatomical structure, vascularity, volume, and weight, although the width of porcine menisci is greater [30]. In addition, the kinematics of the porcine knee reasonably approximates that of the human knee. Consequently, the porcine model is a practical and economically feasible choice that finds extensive use in the biomechanical testing of meniscal repair and replacement techniques and allows for the reasonable translation of the results to clinical applications [31; 32; 33; 34]. However, it is not proven that the entire set of biomechanical properties of the porcine meniscus matches those of the human meniscus [33; 34; 35], raising concerns about the use of this model as a human surrogate and underscoring the need to evaluate its applicability in relation to the specific parameters intended to be studied. Other in vitro studies use human menisci [4; 36; 37; 38; 39], despite their greater heterogeneity among donors. And perhaps more importantly, although meniscal root repair is indicated for non-elderly patients, with the age cut-off being increasingly high in new paradigms [40; 41; 42], donors are not limited by age in many in vitro biomechanical studies. Therefore, the studies sometimes involve tissue from donors of a very advanced age. Another interesting use of experimental models of the meniscus is in computational modeling, where material models of meniscal tissue are adjusted from properties obtained from in vitro tests of tissue samples from various origins, including animals and older humans.