Rapamycin attenuates articular cartilage degeneration by inhibiting β-catenin in a murine model of osteoarthritis.

Rapamycin attenuates articular cartilage degeneration by inhibiting β-catenin in a murine model of osteoarthritis.
Connect Tissue Res. 2019 Feb 20;:
Authors: Ma L, Liu Y, Zhao X, Li P, Jin Q
Abstract
To investigate whether systemic injection of rapamycin attenuates articular cartilage degeneration by inhibiting β-catenin in a murine model of osteoarthritis (OA). Ten-week-old male C57BL/6j wild-type (WT) mice and SOST-knockout (SOST-/-) mice were randomized to a sham group, a vehicle-treated group, and a rapamycin-treated group. Mice in the vehicle-treated group underwent destabilizing of the medial meniscus (DMM) in the right knee, and were then treated with vehicle. Mice in the rapamycin treatment group underwent DMM and were treated with rapamycin. Safranin O-Fast green staining and Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) modified Mankin score were used to evaluate the histopathological features of the articular cartilage in the knee. The expression of light chain 3 (LC3) was evaluated by immunofluorescence, whereas the expression of ATG5, matrix metallopeptidase 13 (MMP-13), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), sclerostin, and β-catenin were evaluated by immunohistochemistry. TUNEL staining was used to determine apoptosis of chondrocytes. The results indicated that in vehicle-treated mice when compared with mice in the sham group, the OARSI scores, expression of MMP-13, VEGF, sclerostin, β-catenin, and chon...

Source: Connective Tissue Research - February 21, 2019 Category: Research Tags: Connect Tissue Res Source Type: research