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Review
. 2022 Sep 23;12(10):1357.
doi: 10.3390/biom12101357.

The Role of Autophagy in Osteoarthritic Cartilage

Wei-Chun Kao  1   2   3   4   5 , Jian-Chih Chen  1   2   3   4 , Ping-Cheng Liu  1   2   3   4 , Cheng-Chang Lu  1   2   3   4   6 , Sung-Yen Lin  1   2   3   4 , Shu-Chun Chuang  1   3 , Shun-Cheng Wu  1   3 , Ling-Hua Chang  1   3 , Mon-Juan Lee  7   8 , Chung-Da Yang  9 , Tien-Ching Lee  1   2   3   4 , Ying-Chun Wang  1   2   3   4   10 , Jhong-You Li  1   2   3   4   9 , Chun-Wang Wei  11 , Chung-Hwan Chen  1   2   3   4   9   11   12   13   14
Affiliations
Review

The Role of Autophagy in Osteoarthritic Cartilage

Wei-Chun Kao et al. Biomolecules. .

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common diseases leading to physical disability, with age being the main risk factor, and degeneration of articular cartilage is the main focus for the pathogenesis of OA. Autophagy is a crucial intracellular homeostasis system recycling flawed macromolecules and cellular organelles to sustain the metabolism of cells. Growing evidences have revealed that autophagy is chondroprotective by regulating apoptosis and repairing the function of damaged chondrocytes. Then, OA is related to autophagy depending on different stages and models. In this review, we discuss the character of autophagy in OA and the process of the autophagy pathway, which can be modulated by some drugs, key molecules and non-coding RNAs (microRNAs, long non-coding RNAs and circular RNAs). More in-depth investigations of autophagy are needed to find therapeutic targets or diagnostic biomarkers through in vitro and in vivo situations, making autophagy a more effective way for OA treatment in the future. The aim of this review is to introduce the concept of autophagy and make readers realize its impact on OA. The database we searched in is PubMed and we used the keywords listed below to find appropriate article resources.

Keywords: AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK); Autophagy; Osteoarthritis (OA); circular RNAs; long non-coding RNAs; microRNAs; non-coding RNAs.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The mechanism of autophagy (key molecules and pathways) in osteoarthritis includes the following main steps: elongation, fusion, degradation and recycling. Defective autophagy could lead to extracellular matrix degradation, chondrocyte apoptosis and abnormal subchondral bone remodeling, resulting in osteoarthritis. →, promote; ┤, inhibit.
Figure 2
Figure 2
LncRNAs and circRNAs that promote or inhibit chondrocyte autophagy. The green color blocks (lncRNAs) and the yellow color blocks (circRNAs) modulate the pink color blocks (miRNAs) and the purple color blocks (other regulatory molecules) which result in altering the autophagic activity of chondrocytes. →, promote; ┤, inhibit.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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