Rheumatic diseases are accompanied by a progressive destruction of the cartilage layer of the joints. Despite the frequency of the disease, degradation mechanisms are not yet understood and methods for early diagnosis are not available. Although some information on pathogenesis could be obtained from the analysis of degradation products of cartilage supernatants, the most direct information on degradation processes would come from the native cartilage as such. We have used 1H as well as 13C HR-MAS (high resolution magic angle spinning) NMR spectroscopy to obtain suitable line-widths of NMR resonances of native cartilage. 1D and 2D NMR spectra of native cartilage were compared with those of enzymatically-treated (collagenase and papain) samples. In the 1H NMR spectra of native cartilage, resonances of polysaccharides, lipids and a few amino acids of collagen were detectable, whereas the 13C NMR spectra primarily indicated the presence of chondroitin sulfate. Treatment with papain resulted only in small changes in the 1H NMR spectrum, whereas a clear diminution of all resonances was detectable in the 13C NMR spectra. On the other hand, treatment with collagenase caused the formation of peptides with an amino acid composition typical for collagen (glycine, proline, hydroxyproline and lysine). It is concluded that the HR-MAS NMR spectra of cartilage may be of significance for the investigation of cartilage degradation since they allow the fast evaluation of cartilage composition and only very small amounts of sample are required.