Publications

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease with multiple endotypes. A hallmark of OA is loss of cartilage; however, it is evident that the rate of cartilage loss differs among patients, which may partly be attributed to differential capacity for cartilage repair. We hypothesize that a low cartilag...

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• Osteoarthritis
• Osteoarthritis Cartilage
• Biomarkers

Objective: The purpose of this overview of osteoarthritis (OA) biomarkers is to provide the non-specialist with a toolbox, based on experience acquired by biomarker researchers over many years, to understand biomarkers in general and their use in the OA field. Methods: We provide an update on this ...

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• Osteoarthritis
• Biomarkers
• Biomarker Insights
• Osteoarthritis Cartilage

Objective: To compare C-reactive protein (CRP) and matrix metalloproteinase-generated neoepitope of CRP (CRPM) as biomarkers of inflammation and radiographic severity in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Methods: Participants with symptomatic osteoarthritis (n=25) of at least one knee underwent kn...

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• Extracellular Matrix Research
• Osteoarthritis

Objective: To investigate acute changes in biochemical markers of cartilage turnover in response to moderate intensity exercise with and without joint impact in humans with knee osteoarthritis. Design: We conducted a randomized, cross-over, exploratory clinical study. Twenty subjects with knee osteo...

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• Biomarker Insights
• Osteoarthritis
• Biomarkers

To investigate the association between markers of synovial inflammation and matrix turnover (MRI-based and serum biomarkers) and knee symptoms in established knee osteoarthritis (KOA). This cross-sectional study utilised data from a randomised, multicentre placebo-controlled trial (UK-VIDEO) of vita...

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• Biomarkers
• Osteoarthritis

The heterogeneous nature of osteoarthritis (OA) and the need to subtype patients is widely accepted in the field. The biomarker CRPM, a metabolite of C-reactive protein (CRP), is released to the circulation during inflammation. Blood CRPM levels have shown to be associated with disease activity and ...

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• Osteoarthritis
• Biomarker Insights

Osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and ankylosing spondylitis, all have one clear common denominator; an altered turnover of bone. However, this may be more complex than a simple change in bone matrix and mineral turnover. While these diseases share a common tissue axis, thei...

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• Ankylosing Spondylitis
• Osteoarthritis

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a progressive, chronic disease characterized by articular cartilage destruction. The pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-17 levels have been reported elevated in serum and synovial fluid of OA patients and correlated with increased cartilage defects and bone remodeling. T...

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• Osteoarthritis

The ultimate hope of researchers and patients is a pathway to development of treatments for osteoarthritis to modify the disease process in addition to the symptoms. However, development of disease modifying drugs requires objective endpoints such as measures of joint structure, joint tissue homeost...

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• Osteoarthritis

Sprifermin, recombinant human fibroblast growth factor 18 (rhFGF18), induces cartilage regeneration in knees of patients with osteoarthritis (OA). We hypothesized that a temporal multiphasic process of extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation and formation underlie this effect. We aimed to characteriz...

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• Osteoarthritis

Objectives: Clinical trials of new disease-modifying treatments for osteoarthritis should demonstrate a positive effect on a functional outcome or reduction in joint failure in order to be considered successful. Total joint replacement (TJR) surgery may be considered as joint failure, but great vari...

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• Osteoarthritis

Objective: Links between pain and joint degradation are poorly understood. We investigated the role of activation of Toll-like receptors (TLR) by cartilage metabolites in initiating and maintaining the inflammatory loop in OA causing joint destruction. Methods: Synovial membrane explants (SMEs) wer...

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• Osteoarthritis

Ex vivo culture systems cover a broad range of experiments dedicated to studying tissue and cellular function in a native setting. Cartilage is a unique tissue important for proper function of the synovial joint and is constituted by a dense extracellular matrix (ECM), rich in proteoglycan and type ...

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• Cartilage
• Osteoarthritis

Importance: Sprifermin is under investigation as a disease-modifying osteoarthritis drug. Objective: To evaluate the effects of sprifermin on changes in total femorotibial joint cartilage thickness in the more symptomatic knee of patients with osteoarthritis. Design, setting, and participants: FOR...

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• Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease of the whole joint, including synovium, bone and cartilage. OA is a slow degenerative and very heterogeneous disease, with both varying levels of disease activity and progression. Biomarkers are urgently needed to assist drug developers in selecting and developing th...

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• Bone
• Osteoporosis
• Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease of the whole joint, including synovium, bone and cartilage. OA is a slow degenerative and very heterogeneous disease, with both varying levels of disease activity and progression. Biomarkers are urgently needed to assist drug developers in selecting and developing th...

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• Bone
• Osteoporosis
• Osteoarthritis

Background: Excessive cartilage degradation is a known characteristic of osteoarthritis (OA). Biochemical markers, such as uCTX-II, have been shown to be associated with disease severity, yet the tissue origin of CTX-II has been disputed. This analysis investigates the association between OA knee jo...

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• Bone
• Osteoarthritis
• Cartilage

BACKGROUND: Excessive cartilage degradation is a known characteristic of osteoarthritis (OA). Biochemical markers, such as uCTX-II, have been shown to be associated with disease severity, yet the tissue origin of CTX-II has been disputed. This analysis investigates the association between OA knee jo...

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• Osteoarthritis
• Bone

There is an increasing demand for accurate endotyping of patients according to their pathogenesis to allow more targeted treatment. We explore a combination of blood-based joint tissue metabolites (neoepitopes) to enable patient clustering through distinct disease profiles. We analysed data from two...

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• Rheumatology
• Osteoarthritis
• Rheumatoid arthritis

BACKGROUND: Osteoarthritis (OA) leads to joint failure and total joint replacement (TJR, either hip (H) or knee (K)). Worsening of pain and joint space narrowing are believed to be surrogates for joint failure; however, we hypothesize that TJR, as a reflection of joint failure, can be used as an end...

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• Rheumatology
• Osteoarthritis

OBJECTIVES: Pain and disability are the main clinical manifestations of osteoarthritis, for which only symptomatic therapies are available. Hence, there is a need for therapies that can simultaneously alter disease progression and provide pain relief. KBP is a dual amylin- and calcitonin-receptor ag...

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• Bone
• Rheumatology
• Osteoarthritis

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review focuses on the molecular taxonomy of osteoarthritis from the perspective of molecular biomarkers. We discuss how wet biochemical markers may be used to understand disease pathogenesis and progression and define molecular endotypes of osteoarthritis and how these corres...

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• Rheumatology
• Osteoarthritis

OBJECTIVE: Phenotypic changes of chondrocytes toward hypertrophy might be fundamental in the pathogenesis of OA, of which type X collagen (Col10) is a well-known marker. The purpose was to develop a specific immunoassay for blood quantification of a newly identified neo-epitope of type X collagen to...

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• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Rheumatology
• Osteoarthritis

There is a need for efficacious and safe pain treatments for OA (osteoarthritis). The nerve growth factor (NGF) antibody tanezumab is associated with high efficacy, but when combined with chronic NSAID treatment shows an increased risk of rapidly progressive osteoarthritis (RPOA) in a small group of...

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• Rheumatology
• Osteoarthritis

In 1992, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) instituted the accelerated approval regulations that allow drugs or biologics for serious conditions that fill an unmet medical need to be approved on the basis of a surrogate endpoint or an intermediate clinical endpoint. The current definition of a s...

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• Rheumatology
• Osteoarthritis

N-terminal propeptide of type II collagen (PIINP) is a biomarker reflecting cartilage formation. PIINP exists in two main splice variants termed as type IIA and type IIB collagen NH₂-propeptide (PIIANP, PIIBNP). PIIANP has been widely recognized as a cartilage formation biomarker. However, the utili...

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• Rheumatology
• Osteoarthritis

OBJECTIVE: A hallmark of osteoarthritis (OA) is degradation of articular cartilage proteoglycans. In isolated human OA chondrocytes, the anti-inflammatory cytokine Interleukin-37 (IL-37) lowers the expression of the proteolytic MMP and ADAMTS enzymes, which mediate this degradation. Therefore, we in...

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• Osteoarthritis
• Rheumatology

OBJECTIVE: Currently, there are no disease-modifying osteoarthritis drugs (DMOADs) approved for osteoarthritis. It is hypothesized that a subtype of OA may be driven by inflammation and may benefit from treatment with anti-inflammatory small molecule inhibitors adopted from treatments of rheumatoid ...

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• Osteoarthritis
• Rheumatology

There is a lack of biochemical markers for non-invasive and objective assessment of symptomatic osteoarthritis (OA). Aggrecanase activity has been shown to be associated with joint deterioration and symptomatic disease through the degradation of extracellular matrix proteins, such as type III collag...

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• Rheumatology
• Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common arthritic disease in the world, leading to debilitating pain and destruction of joint tissues. While pain is the hallmark symptom of osteoarthritis, clear associations between pain and disease processes involved in joint deterioration are lacking. OA pain is mu...

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• Rheumatology
• Osteoarthritis