Expression profiling of ankle joint of a mouse model of gouty arthritis uncovers potential mechanisms involved in pain and inflammation

Gout arthritis (GA) is a prevalent and painful inflammatory arthritis, and its global burden continues to rise. Intense pain induced by gout attacks is a major complication of gout. Treatment and long-term management for gout patients remain challenging. However, the pathogenesis of GA still remained largely unknown. The purpose of this study is to perform an expression profiling to identify genes related with GA in an animal model. Using a monosodium urate (MSU) crystals-induced GA model, we performed RNA-sequencing for the ankle joint of gout mice in different time points. Our results revealed transcriptional changes in the joint. We provided by far the first study to profile gene expression changes and pathway analysis of ankle joint in different time for investigating GA mechanisms. This work may provide novel insights into understanding the mysterious mechanisms underlying GA. Mice were euthanized at 8 h or 24h post-injection of MSU or vehicle. The injected ankle joints were collected collected and RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) was performed.