Recent advance in treatment of osteoarthritis by bioactive components from herbal medicine

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common chronic articular degenerative disease, and characterized by articular cartilage degradation, synovial inflammation/immunity, and subchondral bone lesion, etc. The disease affects 2-6% of the population around the world, and its prevalence rises with age and exceeds 40% in people over 70. Recently, increasing interest has been devoted to the treatment or prevention of OA by herbal medicines. In this paper, the herbal compounds with anti-OA activities were reviewed, and the cheminformatics tools were used to predict their drug-likeness properties and pharmacokinetic parameters. A total of 43 herbal compounds were analyzed, which mainly target the damaged joints (e.g. cartilage, subchondral bone, and synovium, etc.) and circulatory system to improve the pathogenesis of OA. Through cheminformatics analysis, over half of these compounds have good drug-likeness properties, and the pharmacokinetic behavior of these components still needs to be further optimized, which is conducive to the enhancement in their drug-likeness properties. Most of the compounds can be an alternative and valuable source for anti-OA drug discovery, which may be worthy of further investigation and development.

Experimental Therapeutics for the Treatment of Osteoarthritis

“…Many studies are completely performed in vitro using primary chondrocytes from healthy persons or individuals suffering from OA, synovial fibroblasts (SF), several chondrocytic, synovial fibroblast (SF) or macrophage cell lines (eg, human chondrosarcoma SW1353 and OUMS-27 cell lines, murine teratocarcinoma-derived chondrocyte cell line ATDC5, SF K4IM and murine macrophage Raw 264.7 cell lines) or even cartilage explants to simulate natural three-dimensional (3D) conditions ( Table 1 ). 8 , 27 , 49–53 Cells were usually stimulated with probably mostly hyperphysiological concentrations of cytokines IL-1β, TNFα or lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to simulate inflammation associated with OA. 27 , 28 , 52 , 54 On first glance, LPS does not play a role in OA.…”

“…Herbal medicines and other compounds from natural resources, eg, uptaken as nutraceuticals represent an emerging field in OA therapy and novel candidates have been summarized in several very recent reviews. 8 , 9 , 127 Some agents have been used empirically since centuries, eg, in Chinese traditional medicine (see Table 2 ). 128 More systematical screening has been undertaken to identify novel promising compounds 129 and chemoinformatic recherche exploring suitable compounds based on their putative properties deduced from chemical structure and composition was also applied to identify valuable agents for OA.…”

“… 128 More systematical screening has been undertaken to identify novel promising compounds 129 and chemoinformatic recherche exploring suitable compounds based on their putative properties deduced from chemical structure and composition was also applied to identify valuable agents for OA. 8 Nutrigenomics is an additional strategy to find potential therapeutics tailored for individual patients. 130 This novel field implicates that nutrients affect the expression of an individual’s gene setting, translation of proteins and arising metabolites or protect its genes from damage.…”

“…In regard to therapeutical targets in OA, several reviews of literature have recently been published which can be studied. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] However, mesenchymal stromal cell (MSCs) or exosome-based approaches, interrelation of OA with the microbiome, novel strategies of improved viscosupplementation as well as the arising knowledge concerning the impact of micro RNAs (miRNAs) in the OA therapy are less addressed and hence, present a topic of this review. In view of the abundant novel literature related to these issues, this review remains mainly confined to most recent findings of the last three years.…”

Randomised Clinical Trial to Analyse the Efficacy of Eggshell Membrane to Improve Joint Functionality in Knee Osteoarthritis

“…Currently, dietary supplements are commonly used to counteract pain in a combination of hyaluronic acid, glucosamine, and chondroitin. However, some dietary supplements have also been examined [ 11 , 12 ] and have been shown to be a more secure option than NSAIDS [ 13 ].…”