Differential gene expression in cartilage from the mouse DMM osteoarthritis model

Transcriptional profiling of mouse cartilage comparing destabilised medial meniscal operated knee joints to sham operated knee joints in both wild type C57Bl/6 and C57Bl/6 ADAMTS5Dcat mice at 1, 2 and 6 weeks post DMM surgery. The goal was to determine the differential gene expression with the onset of arthritis, both early, mid and late timepoints and to assess the gene expression differences when aggrecan loss is prevented in the ADAMTS5Dcat mouse. The overall design of the experiment is to compare DMM (right leg) to sham operated (left leg) cartilage from the same mouse. In order to identify genes involved in early and late arthritis, RNA was collected from cartilage samples from mice at 1, 2 and 6 weeks post surgery. In addition, to isolate genes differentially expressed downstream of aggrecan loss, the RNA as described was collected from C57Bl/6 wild type mice and ADAMTS5Dcat mice. Four mice were used at each timepoint with their left leg being the control Sham and their right leg the experimental DMM. One sample from the wild type 1wk post operation and one ADAMTS5Dcat dye swap were removed from the analysis for technical reasons.