Studying Osteoarthritis Pathogenesisin Mice

摘要

With the increasing availability and complexity of mouse models of disease,either spontaneous or induced, there is a concomitant increase in their use in theanalysis of pathogenesis. Among such diseases is osteoarthritis, a debilitatingdisease with few treatment options. While advances in our understanding of thepathogenesis of osteoarthritis has advanced through clinical investigations andgenome-wide association studies, there is still a large gap in our knowledge,hindering advances in therapy. Patient samples are available ex vivo, but theseare generally in the very late stages of disease. However, with mice, we areable to induce disease at a defined time and track the progression in vivo andex vivo, from inception to end stage, to delineate the processes involved indisease development.