Re-examining osteoarthritis therapy from a developmental biologist's perspective.
- Resource Type
- Academic Journal
- Authors
- Jaswal AP; Lab 10, Department of Biological Sciences and Bio-engineering, IIT, Kanpur, India. Electronic address: akrit@iitk.ac.in.; Bandyopadhyay A; Lab 10, Department of Biological Sciences and Bio-engineering, IIT, Kanpur, India. Electronic address: abandopa@iitk.ac.in.
- Source
- Publisher: Elsevier Science Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 0101032 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1873-2968 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00062952 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Biochem Pharmacol Subsets: MEDLINE
- Subject
- Language
- English
Osteoarthritis is the most prevalent musculoskeletal disorder and one for which there is no disease modifying therapy available at present. Our current understanding of the disease mechanism of osteoarthritis is limited owing to a lacuna of knowledge about the development and maintenance of articular cartilage that is affected during osteoarthritis. All current therapeutic strategies aim at countering inflammation which though mitigates pain but does not arrest the progressive degeneration of articular cartilage. During osteoarthritis, articular cartilage expresses markers for transient cartilage differentiation. Moreover, blocking transient cartilage differentiation is sufficient for halting the progression of experimental osteoarthritis. A developmental biology inspired approach that combines restoration of tissue microenvironment, supplementation with engineered cartilage and built in mechanism to prevent transient cartilage differentiation could be an avenue for developing a disease modifying therapy for osteoarthritis.
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