Osteoarthritis (OA) research is a fast-growing and extremely wide field, in which a substantial increase in knowledge has been achieved over the last year. It covers many different topics, however, a PubMed search using the terms ‘osteoarthritis’ and ‘biology’ resulted in only a limited number of studies that were published between April 2023 and April 2024. In order to identify OA-relevant studies that focus on mechanistic studies of biological processes at the tissue, cellular, and molecular level, the following keywords were included as search terms: tissue interactions, single cell sequencing, transcriptomics, extracellular matrix, signaling, ion channels, and pain. The final selection of publications presented in this ‘year in review’ was influenced by the personal preferences of the authors, and eventually three larger key themes emerged: 1) Joint tissue interactions covering meniscus, subchondral bone, fat tissue, synovium, and synovial fluid. 2) Degeneration of the cartilage extracellular matrix and generation of bioactive fragments. 3) Receptors, ion channels, signaling pathways, and cellular metabolism. Many of the studies summarized here identified novel potential targets for OA treatment, and promising results were already obtained addressing these targets in different animal models. It will be exciting to see which findings can be translated into future clinical studies and eventually lead to novel treatment approaches for human OA.

中文翻译：

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2024 年骨关节炎年度回顾：生物学


骨关节炎 （OA） 研究是一个快速发展且极其广泛的领域，在过去一年中，该领域的知识取得了大幅增长。它涵盖了许多不同的主题，然而，使用术语 “骨关节炎 ”和 “生物学 ”的 PubMed 搜索只导致了 2023 年 4 月至 2024 年 4 月期间发表的有限数量的研究。为了确定专注于组织、细胞和分子水平生物过程机制研究的 OA 相关研究，以下关键字作为搜索词被包括在内：组织相互作用、单细胞测序、转录组学、细胞外基质、信号传导、离子通道和疼痛。在这个“年度回顾”中展示的最终出版物选择受到作者个人偏好的影响，最终出现了三个更大的关键主题：1） 关节组织相互作用，包括半月板、软骨下骨、脂肪组织、滑膜和滑液。2） 软骨细胞外基质变性并产生生物活性片段。3） 受体、离子通道、信号通路和细胞代谢。这里总结的许多研究确定了 OA 治疗的新潜在靶点，并且已经在不同的动物模型中针对这些靶点获得了有希望的结果。看到哪些发现可以转化为未来的临床研究并最终导致人类 OA 的新治疗方法，这将是令人兴奋的。