Project description:Knee osteoarthritis (KOA), as a degenerative multifactorial disease, affects the quality of life and mental health of patients, and also brings a huge socioeconomic burden. Treating synovitis have shown promise as anti-inflammatory therapeutics in mitigating OA symptoms and disease progression. Here, by analysing synovial single-cell sequencing (scRNA-seq) data from KOA, we found that synovial fibroblasts (FLS) in OA synovium showed a distinct pro-inflammatory phenotype. We collected synovial tissue from patients with clinical OA as well as from healthy donors, and histological examination was consistent with findings in scRNA-seq. Inspired by recent cross-tissue fibroblast lineage studies, we identified by sequencing that healthy FLS in synovial tissues share transcriptome-level similarities with dermal fibroblasts (DFb). Subsequently, we revealed the local as well as systemic distribution of intra-articular injected DFbs by constructing/extracting two types of rat fibroblasts (luciferase DFbs as well as GFP DFbs). The results demonstrate that DFbs can be locally retained in the synovium for up to three weeks following targeted engrafting on it. And intra-articular injection does not result in DFbs migration to vital organs or the occurrence of histological changes in these organs. A rat model of KOA was constructed by anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT) in order to study the therapeutic effect of DFbs on KOA. After injection, the rats showed improvement in painful gait. In addition, histological as well as imaging results showed reduced synovitis and improvement in articular cartilage. Finally we verified the protective effect of DFbs on cytokine-stimulated chondrocytes in a co-culture system.
Project description:Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most prevalent chronic joint disease and the precise genetic mechanisms are yet to be fully elucidated. The aim of this study is to evaluate, for the first time, the differences in gene expression profiles of healthy and leptin-induced cartilage in rat. To investigate the underlying pathogenic factors in OA, alterations in gene expression between leptin-induced articular cartilage rat models and healthy control rat models were investigated using the Whole Rat Genome Oligo Microarray. In the present study, 1857 differentially expressed genes (DEGs; 1197 up-regulated and 660 down-regulated) were identified. Expression of some OA-related known genes is known to be associated with leptin induction, including matrix metalloproteinase (MMP), inflammatory factors, growth factors and genes involved in cell death, apoptosis and osteoclast differentiation. However, some new candidate genes that had never been reported to be related with OA, such as BCL2L11, were consistently observed to be up-regulated, suggesting they might be involved in OA progression. Our findings indicate that leptin plays an important role in the progression of OA by mediating expression change in multiple genes, although the molecular mechanisms need to be further clarified. Further study of these leptin-induced genes may provide new insights into understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying OA. To identify genes with changed expression in response to leptin, genome wide expression profiles were generated for leptin-affected cartilage (L group) and healthy controls (H group) in rats. 24 rats were divided into two groups: control animals (H group, n = 12) and leptin-induced animals (L group, n = 12). H group included two replicates, sample1 and sample2. L group also included two replicates, sample3 and sample4.
Project description:Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most prevalent chronic joint disease and the precise genetic mechanisms are yet to be fully elucidated. The aim of this study is to evaluate, for the first time, the differences in gene expression profiles of healthy and leptin-induced cartilage in rat. To investigate the underlying pathogenic factors in OA, alterations in gene expression between leptin-induced articular cartilage rat models and healthy control rat models were investigated using the Whole Rat Genome Oligo Microarray. In the present study, 1857 differentially expressed genes (DEGs; 1197 up-regulated and 660 down-regulated) were identified. Expression of some OA-related known genes is known to be associated with leptin induction, including matrix metalloproteinase (MMP), inflammatory factors, growth factors and genes involved in cell death, apoptosis and osteoclast differentiation. However, some new candidate genes that had never been reported to be related with OA, such as BCL2L11, were consistently observed to be up-regulated, suggesting they might be involved in OA progression. Our findings indicate that leptin plays an important role in the progression of OA by mediating expression change in multiple genes, although the molecular mechanisms need to be further clarified. Further study of these leptin-induced genes may provide new insights into understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying OA.
Project description:Knee osteoarthritis (KOA), as a degenerative multifactorial disease, affects the quality of life and mental health of patients, and also brings a huge socioeconomic burden. Treating synovitis have shown promise as anti-inflammatory therapeutics in mitigating OA symptoms and disease progression. Here, by analysing synovial single-cell sequencing (scRNA-seq) data from KOA, we found that synovial fibroblasts (FLS) in OA synovium showed a distinct pro-inflammatory phenotype. We collected synovial tissue from patients with clinical OA as well as from healthy donors, and histological examination was consistent with findings in scRNA-seq. Inspired by recent cross-tissue fibroblast lineage studies, we identified by sequencing that healthy FLS in synovial tissues share transcriptome-level similarities with dermal fibroblasts (DFb). Subsequently, we revealed the local as well as systemic distribution of intra-articular injected DFbs by constructing/extracting two types of rat fibroblasts (luciferase DFbs as well as GFP DFbs). The results demonstrate that DFbs can be locally retained in the synovium for up to three weeks following targeted engrafting on it. And intra-articular injection does not result in DFbs migration to vital organs or the occurrence of histological changes in these organs. A rat model of KOA was constructed by anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT) in order to study the therapeutic effect of DFbs on KOA. After injection, the rats showed improvement in painful gait. In addition, histological as well as imaging results showed reduced synovitis and improvement in articular cartilage. Finally we verified the protective effect of DFbs on cytokine-stimulated chondrocytes in a co-culture system.
Project description:Analysis of LBNF1 rat testes from controls, containing both somatic and all germ cell types and from irradiated rats in which all cells germ cells except type A spermatgogonia are eliminated. Results provide insight into distinguishing germ and somatic cell genes and identification of somatic cell genes that are upregulated after irradiation.
Project description:In order to establish a rat embryonic stem cell transcriptome, mRNA from rESC cell line DAc8, the first male germline competent rat ESC line to be described and the first to be used to generate a knockout rat model was characterized using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis.