Emerging molecular biomarkers in osteoarthritis pathology

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis resulting in joint discomfort and disability, culminating in decline in life quality. Attention has been drawn in recent years to disease-associated molecular biomarkers found in readily accessible biofluids due to low invasiveness of acquisition and their potential to detect early pathological molecular changes not observed with traditional imaging methodology. These biochemical markers of OA have been found in synovial fluid, blood, and urine. They include emerging molecular classes, such as metabolites and noncoding RNAs, as well as classical biomarkers, like inflammatory mediators and by-products of degradative processes involving articular cartilage. Although blood-based biomarkers tend to be most studied, the use of synovial fluid, a more isolated biofluid in the synovial joint, and urine as an excreted fluid containing OA biomarkers can offer valuable information on local and overall disease activity, respectively. Furthermore, larger clinical studies are required to determine relationships between biomarkers in different biofluids, and their impacts on patient measures of OA. This narrative review provides a concise overview of recent studies of OA using these four classes of biomarkers as potential biomarker for measuring disease incidence, staging, prognosis, and therapeutic intervention efficacy.

Keywords: biomarkers; cartilage degradation; inflammatory biomarkers; metabolites; noncoding RNA; osteoarthritis.

Figure 1.

Diagrammatic representation of some key biomarkers in biofluids from patients with osteoarthritis. Metabolites, noncoding RNAs, inflammatory markers and type II collagen cleavage products have been investigated as potential biomarkers of OA diagnosis, progression and prognosis in multiple biofluids including blood isolates (plasma and serum), synovial fluid and urine. Source: Created by Biorender.