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Even after surgical procedure, accidents to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) typically result in persistent ache and lowered mobility, with restricted choices for therapy. New analysis means that advances in information and therapeutics could come from an unlikely supply: canine.
In a research printed April 18 within the Journal of Orthopedic Analysis, Cornell researchers discovered that the identical protein accumulates within the joints of each canine and people after ACL harm. Which means utilizing canine as a mannequin to check ACL harm—and the post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) that usually follows—could vastly speed up advances in understanding.
“Our study provides support for using naturally occurring disease in dogs to learn more about human medicine,” stated Sydney Womack, first writer and a twin DVM and Ph.D. candidate within the Faculty of Veterinary Drugs (CVM). “Dogs live with us in our houses, they eat off of our plates, they go on runs and hikes with us—they’re probably as close as we can get to mimicking human lifestyle, and I think they’re a huge untapped resource.”
ACL accidents are frequent in younger athletes, disproportionately affecting females, and might result in the event of PTOA comparatively early in life, however why some folks develop the situation ultimately after harm, at totally different ranges of severity, stays a thriller. Present therapies might help alleviate signs however cannot cease the illness from growing or progressing.
The upregulated protein shared between the 2 species—known as periostin—had been documented within the joint fluid of people after ACL accidents however not in canine.
“It’s rare to repeat a result like that in the same species, let alone two,” stated Heidi Reesink, senior writer and affiliate professor of medical sciences (CVM), with a joint appointment on the College of California, Davis. “It’s exciting because we followed the same methodology for both species—you might find a study that just looks at humans or just looks at dogs, but there’s always going to be variation between labs and how samples were processed that makes it hard to compare between studies. That’s not the case here.”
The researchers used joint fluid samples from canine sufferers on the Cornell College Hospital for Animals, which had been saved by the Cornell Veterinary Biobank, and samples from human sufferers on the Hospital for Particular Surgical procedure (HSS) in New York Metropolis. The crew analyzed all of the proteins within the samples and located that 60% of proteins detected had been shared between the species, with periostin being by far probably the most upregulated in each canine and people.
“There are many potential targets and a lot of overlap between dogs and humans,” Reesink stated. “This study is powerful because it suggests that dogs could be valuable for answering questions that are harder to study in people, all while we find better treatments for both species.”
Canines’ shorter life expectancy, in addition to simpler entry to joint fluid samples, might expedite the research of PTOA’s development and its therapies.
“With dogs, we’ll be able to study the progression of the disease within 10 years,” Womack stated, “whereas humans live so much longer, and it’s much harder to get healthy knee tissue samples to use as controls.”
Womack is already wanting extra carefully on the position of periostin and its potential as a therapeutic goal or biomarker, which can point out an individual’s danger of growing PTOA.
“There’s some evidence that periostin is really important in the immediate wound-healing stage, but then chronic upregulation of periostin could lead to increased inflammation and degeneration of the joint,” Womack stated. “I’m studying periostin in mice right now, and I’m excited to see if decreasing or removing periostin expression changes the disease progression.”
Reesink stated the upregulation of periostin can also be implicated in coronary heart illness and sure cancers in people, so learning it as a therapeutic goal, in canine or different animal fashions, might have implications for a variety of illnesses.
“We have an interest in understanding its role in other types of joint disease, including age-related arthritis and other types of traumatic injury,” Reesink stated. “There could be shared therapeutics developed that target these signal pathways and improve a whole host of conditions across species.”
Co-authors of the research embody Camila B. Carballo, assistant professor of musculoskeletal analysis in orthopedic surgical procedure at Weill Cornell Medical Faculty; Scott A. Rodeo, professor of orthopedic surgical procedure at Weill Cornell Drugs, with a joint appointment at HSS; and doctoral candidate Erica J. Secor ’09, DVM ’13.
Extra info:
Sydney J. Womack et al, Proteomics Reveals Elevated Periostin in Synovial Fluid From Canine and Human Anterior Cruciate Ligament Damage, Journal of Orthopaedic Analysis (2025). DOI: 10.1002/jor.26078
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For advances in treating ACL accidents, look to canine (2025, April 18)
retrieved 19 April 2025
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