Characterization of microRNA Levels in Synovial Fluid from Knee Osteoarthritis and Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tears

Abstract

This study investigated modifications of microRNA expression profiles in knee synovial fluid of patients with osteoarthritis (OA) and rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Twelve microRNAs (26a-5p, 27a-3p, let7a-5p, 140-5p, 146-5p, 155-5p, 16-5p,186-5p, 199a-3p, 210-3p, 205-5p, and 30b-5p) were measured by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) in synovial fluids obtained from 30 patients with ACL tear and 18 patients with knee OA. These 12 miRNAs were chosen on the basis of their involvement in pathological processes of bone and cartilage. Our results show that miR-26a-5p, miR-186-5p, and miR-30b-5p were expressed in the majority of OA and ACL tear samples, whereas miR-199a-3p, miR-210-3p, and miR-205-5p were detectable only in a few samples. Interestingly, miR-140-5p was expressed in only one sample of thirty in the ACL tear group. miR-140-5p has been proposed to modulate two genes (BGN and COL5A1100) that are involved in ligamentous homeostasis; their altered expression could be linked with ACL rupture susceptibility. The expression of miR-30b-5p was higher in OA and chronic ACL groups compared to acute ACL samples. We provide evidence that specific miRNAs could be detected not only in synovial fluid of patients with OA, but also in post-traumatic ACL tears.

The application of exosomes in the early diagnosis and treatment of osteoarthritis

“…Granulocytic-myeloid-derived suppressor cells (GMDSCs)-derived exosomal miRNAs miRNA-29A-3 P and miRNA-93-5 P can effectively reduce arthritis index, leukocyte Frontiers in Pharmacology frontiersin.org infiltration, and cartilage destruction in an OA mouse model by inhibiting inflammatory responses of T helper (Th1) cells, i.e., Th1 cells, and Th17 cells (Zhu et al, 2019). Exosomes with a high expression of miRNA-26a-5p can alleviate the injury of synovial fibroblasts induced by prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase (Rizzi et al, 2022). Exosomal miRNA-100-5 P showed inhibitory effects on the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and inflammation thus having therapeutic effects on OA (Luo et al, 2019).…”