Osteoarthritis is an incurable joint disease and one of the leading causes of permanent disability. It is a growing social problem in countries with ageing populations and sedentary lifestyles. In addition to cartilage wear, the disease also affects several other surrounding tissues, including the subchondral bone, whose microstructural changes may contribute to the symptoms and increase in cartilage wear, and may also be of diagnostic significance.
- A common cause of cartilage wear is meniscus damage, for example due to a sports injury. The meniscus is the two C-shaped fibrous cartilages in the knee joint between the tibial surface and the lower end of the femur, which stabilise the knee joint and also help to cushion mechanical loads. Before coming back to the Institute of Life Sciences at the University of Debrecen in 2023, I worked for six years as a postdoctoral researcher at Saarland University in Germany, where one of the main research topics in our lab was the study of cartilage wear in different animal models. It was here that we started writing the prize-winning article, which we finished after I returned home," said Tamás Oláh, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Physiology, University of Debrecen.
The aim of the Publication Award winning abstract was to collect and evaluate all the published articles that investigate the altered bone structure in post-traumatic cartilage loss due to meniscus injury in small animal models, mice and rats.
- Of around six thousand articles, 134 met our strict preliminary criteria. I made the appropriate comparisons based on a variety of criteria to shed light on the most common surgical methods to induce cartilage loss with meniscus injury, which imaging and other examination methods are used to study bone lesions, and most importantly, we collected information on when and how the different microstructural parameters of the subchondral bone change after the onset of the disease," the University of Debrecen researcher told hirek.unideb.hu.
The researchers started the first search in the summer of 2022, and the first version included both human and large animal (sheep, miniature pigs, dogs, rabbits) data. After publishing the section on large animal models in the journal Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy, they started to focus more on small animals in the summer of 2023. Their article was published in Osteoarthritis and Cartilage in June 2024.
- We have shown, for example, that in mice, medial meniscal destabilisation (DMM), damage and displacement were the most common osteoarthritis-inducing methods, while in rats, meniscal transection (MMT) was the most common. We also summarized the information published so far on the changes in the subchondral bone structure, showing that in mice a unidirectional process of disappearance of the smaller bone scaffolds and thickening of the bone structure is observed, whereas in rats the degradation and later thickening of the bone structure is typical. In addition, by examining the discrepancies in the articles analysed, we have shown how important the correct choice of experimental design and unoperated control groups is in the evaluation of results," the researcher stressed.
Three people participated in the research and in writing the summary article. The first author, Tamás Oláh's former lab supervisor in Germany, Professor Henning Madry, was the corresponding author, and the other co-author was Magali Cucchiarini, also a researcher in Germany.
- The Publication Prize awarded by the Gróf Tisza István Foundation for the University of Debrecen and the University of Debrecen is a great for me and my colleagues in Germany. It confirms that our research topic has a place in the scientific portfolio of our university, and it gives us strength for further work and collaboration - Tamás Oláh told hirek.unideb.hu.
In the third part of the study, the research team wants to present human data. The Institute of Life Sciences at the University of Debrecen is currently conducting a scientific study partly related to the topic, in which the researchers will also make use of their experience gained during the preparation of the winning article. At the university, the research led by Tamás Oláh is also investigating changes in bone structure in different mouse models after the induction of cartilage damage. In addition to their basic science importance, they hope that they will also be of clinical use.
Press Centre - CzA
