RESEARCH ARTICLE
Cartilage Degeneration, Subchondral Mineral and Meniscal Mineral Densities in Hartley and Strain 13 Guinea Pigs
Yubo Sun*, 1, Brian P Scannell 1, Patrick R Honeycutt 1, David R Mauerhan 1, James Norton H2, Edward N Hanley Jr1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2015Volume: 9
First Page: 65
Last Page: 70
Publisher ID: TORJ-9-65
DOI: 10.2174/1874312901409010065
Article History:
Received Date: 8/5/2015Revision Received Date: 1/6/2015
Acceptance Date: 19/6/2015
Electronic publication date: 15/9/2015
Collection year: 2015
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Osteoarthritis is a joint disease involved in articular cartilage, subchondral bone, meniscus and synovial membrane. This study sought to examine cartilage degeneration, subchondral bone mineral density (BMD) and meniscal mineral density (MD) in male Hartley, female Hartley and female strain 13 guinea pigs to determine the association of cartilage degeneration with subchondral BMD and meniscal MD. Cartilage degeneration, subchondral BMD and meniscal MD in 12 months old guinea pigs were examined with histochemistry, X-ray densitometry and calcium analysis. We found that male Hartley guinea pigs had more severe cartilage degeneration, subchondral BMD and meniscal MD than female Hartley guinea pigs, but not female strain 13 guinea pigs. Female strain 13 guinea pigs had more severe cartilage degeneration and higher subchondral BMD, but not meniscal MD, than female Hartley guinea pigs. These findings indicate that higher subchondral BMD, not meniscal MD, is associated with more severe cartilage degeneration in the guinea pigs and suggest that abnormal subchondral BMD may be a therapeutic target for OA treatment. These findings also indicate that the pathogenesis of OA in the male guinea pigs and female guinea pigs are different. Female strain 13 guinea pig may be used to study female gender-specific pathogenesis of OA.
