Joint disease: New therapeutic approach for osteoarthritis discovered

(c) 2014 Duet PandG/Shutterstock - For a long time, osteoarthritis was considered to be the result of wear and tear in advanced age. In the meantime, more and more studies are linking the degradation of articular cartilage to inflammatory and metabolic processes in the joint. In researching these processes, a scientific team led by MedUni Vienna has made significant progress in understanding the disease, which could provide a new starting point for diagnosis and therapy. The study has just been published in the renowned journal Annals of Rheumatic Diseases. In their research, the team led by molecular geneticist Erwin Wagner (Clinical Institute of Laboratory Medicine and Department of Dermatology at MedUni Vienna), in cooperation with colleagues at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, focused on a protein (c-Fos) that has long been a focus of scientific attention in connection with bone and cartilage diseases. As the current research also showed, cartilage samples from humans and mice with osteoarthritis (OA) have elevated levels of c-Fos. The protein is secreted by cartilage cells in response to OA signals and plays a role in protecting cartilage.