Autoimmunity (May 2019)

Local intra-articular injection of rapamycin inhibits NLRP3 activity and prevents osteoarthritis in mouse DMM models

  • Gang Xu,
  • Jian Wang,
  • Long Ma,
  • Xin Zhao,
  • Wen Luo,
  • Qunhua Jin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/08916934.2019.1643844
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 52, no. 4
pp. 168 – 175

Abstract

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This study investigated the influence of autophagy on the expression of Collagen type II and light chain 3 (LC-3) in the articular cartilage of osteoarthritis (OA) models. The expression of OA associated biomarkers namely Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP-13), NOD-, LRR- and pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) induced by destabilizing the medial meniscus operation (DMM) were also investigated. A total of 60 C57BL/6 mice were divided into (1) control; (2) DMM2; (3) DMM8; (4) rapamycin 2 weeks; and (5) rapamycin 8 weeks groups. Saffranin O-Fast green staining, histomorphometry and immunohistochemical methods were used for analysis. In the DMM group, the expression of the OA biomarkers MMP-13, NLRP3 significantly increased, whilst Collagen II and LC-3B levels were significantly lower than other experimental groups. We hypothesized that NLRP3 inhibits autophagy activation and delays disease progression.

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