9.Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disease and its prevalence is growing in developed countries due to population ageing, more frequent biomechanical trauma and obesity.
10.Methods c-Fos expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry on articular cartilage sections from patients with OA and mice subjected to the destabilisation of the medial meniscus (DMM) model of OA.
11.This implies that chondrocytes maintain the structural and functional integrity of cartilage and sense microenvironmental changes during OA onset, although the underlying cartilage protective mechanisms remain elusive.
12.Importantly, mutations in cartilage matrix genes such as COL2A1, COL9A3, COL11A2 and cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP), which are produced by articular chondrocytes, cause chondrodysplasia with early-onset OA.
13.Obesity and metabolic syndrome are recognized as strong risk factors for hand OA, but also knee OA, where low-grade chronic inflammation and systemic metabolic alterations disrupt joint tissue homoeostasis.
14.A large fraction (40%) of knee OA is heritable and genome-wide association studies indicated that most OA risk variants are located in non-coding sequences, and enriched close to genes involved in bone and cartilage development.