New study provides insight into how osteoarthritis develops

British scientists have conducted an Arthritis Research UK-funded study that sheds new light on the way in which early osteoarthritis can affect the development of cells.

Conducted by the University of Liverpool's Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease, the study compared cells isolated from patients with osteoarthritis with those from healthy patients in order to find out how cells in joints stop working properly, leading to the onset of arthritis.

The research - published in the medical journal Arthritis & Rheumatology - found that early osteoarthritis causes changes in the rate at which molecules in joint cartilage called mRNA are created and destroyed.

Since these molecules act as messengers, carrying information from the DNA to areas of the cells which create the proteins to carry out various functions, upsetting this balance can prevent cells from working as they should.

Osteoarthritic cartilage cells were shown to have a significant number of genes in which mRNA was destroyed more rapidly than those in healthy cells, offering a fresh insight into the biological processes underpinning the disease.

The researchers hope that their improved understanding of this key part of the process will allow them to develop new treatments that can be used to address the problem.

Dr Simon Tew, senior lecturer in orthopaedic sciences, said: "We've not discovered the cause of arthritis, but this does shed light on the process of how the disease manifests itself. To develop new drugs to treat one of the leading causes of disability requires the fullest possible understanding of the condition and this discovery is part of that overall picture."

A spokesman for Arthritis Research UK commented: "These research results shed a fascinating light on the development of early osteoarthritis and offer hope to the 8.5 million people in the UK living with this potentially crippling joint condition of effective new treatments in the future."