Peptidomic Analysis of Cartilage and Subchondral bone in OA patients.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to develop a method for directly analyzing osteochondral samples straight out of the operating room without cell culturing, thereby enabling identification of potential peptide biomarkers to better understand the mechanisms involved in the development of osteoarthritis and pain.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Osteochondral plugs from wounded and macroscopically non-wounded zones of the femur condyle were collected from 6 patients with manifest osteoarthritis (OA) undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The samples were demineralized and supernatant was collected and isotopically marked with Tandem Mass Tag (TMT) labeling and analyzed using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry LC-MS/MS.

RESULTS: Using peptidomics, 6292 endogenous peptides were identified. Five hundred sixty six peptides (8 identified endogenous peptides) differed significantly (p-value 0.10) from wounded zones compared to non-wounded zones.

CONCLUSION: This pilot study shows promising results for enabling peptidomic analysis of cartilage and bone straight out of the operating room. With further refinement, peptidomics can potentially become a diagnostic tool for OA, and improve the knowledge of disease progression and genesis of pain. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.