Gene therapy for temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis

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The purposes of this research are to clarify the mechanism of cartilage degradation in osteoarthritis (OA) and to investigate the possibility of gene therapy for articular cartlige restoration using connective tissue growth fector (CTGF).First, we establish a genuine mechanical-stress-induced OA model of the rabbit TMJ. In the experimental rabbits, repetitive forced jaw opening (RFJO) 3 hours/day for 5 days was applied. By histological assessment of the TMJ articular tissues, partial eburnation of the articular cartilage, reactive marginal proliferation of the articular cartilage chondrocytes and nested proliferation of chondrocytes in the subchondral bone area were observed at 7 days after the RFJO period. These results suggest the RFJO protocol without any surgical intervention can induce evident OA-like lesions in the rabbit TMJ, and this OA model may greatly contribute to the elucidation of the cartilage degradation mechanism in TMJ OA.Second, we investigated the effects of CTGF/Hcs24 transduced by recombinant adenoviruses on the rabbit articular cartilage (RAC) cells in vitro. When RAC cells were infected with adenoviruses caontaining the CTGF/Hcs24 gene, RAC cells expressed CTGF/Hcs24 mRNA and produced CTGF/Hcs24 protein. RAC cells synthesized more proteoglycan than the control cells.