Edinburgh scientists hope to shed new light on arthritis
Scientists in Edinburgh are hoping to shed new light on the crippling condition of osteoarthritis, which affects around 1.5m people throughout the UK.
Osteoarthritis, which leads to stiff and painful joints, becomes increasingly common as people get older, but is no longer thought to be an inevitable part of the ageing process.
Now a team at the University of Edinburgh's department of biomedical sciences has been awarded a three-year grant of £116, 639 from the Arthritis Research Campaign to study the role of cartilage cells, or chondrocytes, in the development of early osteoarthritis.
"It used to be thought that OA arose from progressive "wear and tear" of the moving joints over the years, so that eventually the cartilage was lost and the joint became increasingly painful and ultimately un-usable," explained Dr Andrew Hall, senior lecturer in physiology.
"However, evidence is accumulating that it is more likely that OA is the end result of a complex series of changes to the mechanical properties of cartilage in which cartilage cells (or chondrocytes) play a central role. It is likely that an event, or a series of events, causes chondrocytes to switch from making normal healthy cartilage, to produce an excess of damaging enzymes that gradually cause the cartilage to disintegrate."
Preliminary experiments have shown that one factor that might make this happen is a change in shape and volume of these chondrocytes, which increases as the severity of OA gets worse..
"What is particularly interesting is that abnormal chondrocytes are present in apparently healthy cartilage, which suggest that even before any obvious cartilage damage is apparent, there might still be some damage and thus weakness," added Dr Hall. "It is possible that the cells which have changed shape are producing weak cartilage, and/or the damaging enzymes that result in cartilage breakdown.
"We hope our work will lead to new insights into the role cartilage cells play in the early stages of OA, and might suggest new approaches for treatment of this debilitating disorder."
The Arthritis Research Campaign is the fifth biggest medical research charity in the UK and
currently funds 350 projects into arthritis and rheumatic disease. In the past 12 months it raised £21m entirely from public donations.
