Genes of Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis is the leading cause of disability worldwide. There is no treatment for it other than medication to alleviate pain. With this in mind, a research team at the Wellcome Sanger Institute (Cambridge, UK) relied on the UK Biobank to screen tissue samples from 30,000+ people with osteoarthritis and 300,000 controls without it. What they found were nine genes implicated in the disease. “Researchers then investigated the role of the nine new genes in osteoarthritis, by studying both normal cartilage and diseased cartilage from individuals who had a joint replacement. The team looked for genes that were active in the progression of the disease by extracting the relevant cells from healthy and diseased tissue, studying the levels of proteins in the tissue and sequencing the RNA – the messenger that carries instructions from DNA for controlling the production of proteins.” They also determined that type 2 diabetes and high lipid levels in blood were not connected to this arthritis, but obesity did correlate. Five of the nine genes are potential drug targets. In a related story, investigators at Wake Forest University have identified hyaluronic acid as a key inflammatory molecule, and perhaps the link to obesity. MORE
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Image Credit: NIH