ADAMTS-9 is an aggrecan-degrading enzyme in mouse cartilage

Although ADAMTS-4 and ADAMTS-5 are the principal aggrecanases in mice and humans, mice lacking both these enzymes (ADAMTS-4/-5Dcat) are healthy, viable, with no overt skeletal phenotype, suggesting the presence of an alternative aggrecanase in these mice. We previously identified a novel aggrecanase activity that was regulated by retinoic acid, but not IL-1a. The upregulated activity cleaved aggrecan at E↓A bonds. This study aimed to identify the alternative aggrecanase. Femoral head cartilage from TS-4/5Dcat mice was stimulated with IL-1a or retinoic acid and total RNA was analysed by microarray. Candidate, upregulated genes identified by Quantile Normalisation included ADAMTS, MMPm cathepsin and calpain families as putative aggrecanases. Three criteria, including quantitative RT-PCR analyses, sensitivity to retinoic acid treatment and sensitivity to TIMP-3 inhibition, were then used as readouts to identify candidate extracellular proteinases whose mRNA expression levels were increased by retinoic acid, but not by IL-1a treatment. Thereafter, gene silencing was used to identify the most likely aggrecanase in chondrocytes from TS-4/5Dcat mice. Aggrecanase activity was monitored by Western blotting and immunohistochemistry with neoepitope antibodies. The microarray analyses identified ADAMTS-9, MMP-11 and calpain-5 as candidate aggrecanases that were upregulated by retinoic acid. While qPCR confirmed this finding, calpain 5 was excluded from the candidate list because it was not inhibited by TIMP-3. MMP-11 was also excluded because it was upregulated by IL-1a. ADAMTS-9 therefore emerged as a candidate for the novel aggrecanase. Gene silencing confirmed ADAMTS-9 as the putative aggrecanase. Immunohistochemistry revealed that ADAMTS-9 in mouse knee joints was expressed in the proliferative zone of both wildtype and TS-4/5Dcat growth plates, and also in the calcified cartilage of the wildtype hypertrophic zone. In conclusion, ADAMTS-9 is an aggrecanase that cleaves at FREEE1467↓1468GLGS in the chondroitin sulphate-rich region of aggrecan. The experiment compared three conditions (untreated, IL-1a-treated and retinoic acid treated) in two genotypes (Donut and Gertrude ADAMTS4/5Dcat mice), in duplicate.