Gene expression profiling in knee cartilage in a rat model of osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic degenerative disease that leads to joint failure with pain and disability. Gene regulations are implicated in driving an imbalance between the expression of catabolic and anabolic factors, leading eventually to osteoarthritic cartilage degeneration. The different stages of disease progression are described by the complex pattern of transcriptional regulations. The dynamics in pattern alterations were monitored in each individual animal during the time-course of OA progression. Knee cartilage samples were collected from individual male Wistar rats with monosodium iodoacetate (MIA) induced OA (0, 2, 14, 28 days after the treatment). MIA-treated (3 mg) animals were compared to intact controls. Four replicate samples were analyzed per each experimental group. We used whole-genome microarrays (Affymetrix Rat Gene 2.0 ST) to identify OA-related molecular signatures in the knee cartilage.