Title: Associating Outcome Measures across Chemical and Surgical Experimental Models of Chronic Osteoarthritis
Authors: Zahra Farhat Malik, Hina Younis, Tayyaba Bashir
Volume: 4
Issue: 12
Pages: 35-44
Publication Date: 2020/12/28
Abstract:
The disease of osteoarthritis (OA) can be associated with persistent joint pain and disability. Numerous factors may contribute to the pain severity and also to the progression of OA, both of which may have different mechanistic pathways that could be targeted to develop treatments. However, in OA and OA-pain research, there are no accepted 'gold standard' OA models and associated outcome measures. Relatively little work has evaluated both the disease of OA and pain across different models. Therefore, we describe alterations in somatosensory processing, limb use, and joint degeneration in two rodent models of OA. Stifle (knee) OA was induced in Sprague-Dawley rodent via intraarticular injection of monoiodoacetate (MIA) or surgical transection of anterior cruciate ligament and destabilization of medial meniscus (ACL+DMM or DMM alone). To investigate OA- associated pain, whether evoked or spontaneous, a battery of reflexive and non-reflexive assays were employed. Joint degeneration was assessed histologically. Six-weeks post OA-induction, the ACL+DMM had higher lameness scores (p<0.001) and tended to demonstrate greater functional disability with movement-induced and spontaneous (i.e., standing) impairments than MIA. However, joint degeneration was more severe in the MIA model with total loss of articular cartilage than ACL+DMM and 14 weeks post- DMM surgery. The findings here suggest that the ACL+DMM model may be more valuable in pain studies investigating changes in pain behaviors. Conversely, the MIA model may be a more suitable model for quickly screening novel therapeutics targeted towards mitigating or reversing histological changes associated with OA.