BioProject

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most prevalent chronic joint disease and the precise genetic mechanisms are yet to be fully elucidated. More...

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. Overall design: 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. Less...