Osteoarthritis: molecular insights offer hope for future treatments

Light has been shed on the way that early osteoarthritis can affect the development of cells, scientists report in Arthritis & Rheumatology, a finding that could lead to the development of new treatments in the future.
The research team compared cells from people with osteoarthritis with those from healthy people so they could establish exactly how cells in joints stop working properly, leading to the onset of arthritis.
They found that early osteoarthritis causes changes in the rate at which tiny molecules (mRNA) in joint cartilage are created and destroyed. mRNA transports information from DNA to areas of the cells that create proteins to carry out various functions. Upsetting the balance can therefore stop cells from working as they should.
Osteoarthritic cartilage cells seemed to have a significant number of genes in which mRNA was destroyed faster than those in healthy cells.
Understanding of this key part of the process might allow scientists to develop new treatments that can be used to address the problem.
“We’ve not discovered the cause of arthritis, but this does shed light on the process of how the disease manifests itself,” explains Dr Simon Tew who is involved in the work. “To develop new drugs to treat one of the leading causes of disability requires the fullest possible understanding of the condition and this discovery is part of that overall picture.”
A spokesman from Arthritis Research UK comments:
“These research results shed a fascinating light on the development of early osteoarthritis and offer hope to the 8.5 million people in the UK living with this potentially crippling joint condition of effective new treatments in the future.”

Image credit: Ivy Dawned