Telomere Length Provides Insights into Cartilage Aging and Repair

“Our results are not surprising when looking at OA in the broad context of aging. However, the modern discovery technologies—e.g., gene expression profiling and gene polymorphism—do not take telomere alterations into consideration, and the standard assay for measuring telomere length misses the ultra-short telomeres we identified with our new assay, and which we found systematically associated with OA. Thus, our findings may be a surprise for the OA researchers using the classical leading edge discovery technologies,” explained Dr. Harbo in an e-mail to The Rheumatologist.

Dr. Pullen is a medical writer based in the Chicago area.

Reference

1. Harbo M, Delaisse JM, Kjaersgaard-Andersen P, Soerensen FB, Koelvraa S, Bendix L. The relationship between ultra-short telomeres, aging of articular cartilage and the development of human hip osteoarthritis. Mech Ageing Dev. 2013. [Epub ahead of print]