Direct assessment of articular cartilage and underlying subchondral bone reveals a progressive gene expression change in human osteoarthritic knees.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To evaluate the interaction of articular cartilage (AC) and subchondral bone (SB) through analysis of osteoarthritis (OA)-related genes of site-matched tissue.

Design

We developed a novel method for isolating site-matched overlying AC and underlying SB from three and four regions of interest respectively from the human knee tibial plateau (n = 50). For each site, the severity of cartilage changes of OA were assessed histologically, and the severity of bone abnormalities were assessed by microcomputed tomography. An RNA isolation procedure was optimized that yielded high quality RNA from site-matched AC and SB tibial regions. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (Q-PCR) analysis was performed to evaluate gene expression of 61 OA-associated genes for correlation wi

SUBMITTER: Chou CH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3593157 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature