Attenuation of Post-Traumatic Osteoarthritis After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury Via Inhibition of Hedgehog Signaling.

We aimed to investigate whether post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) progression is appropriately represented by a PTOA mouse model using a unique climbing cage to add mechanical loading after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) transection and to determine how Hedgehog signaling inhibition prevents PTOA progression by observing time-dependent morphological changes. This controlled laboratory study histologically compared mice with surgically-induced ACL transection (ACLT) and those with voluntary increased activity in a climbing cage from 1 week postoperatively (ACLT + climbing). We generated conditional knockout (cKO) mice with a deleted Smoothened (Smo) gene.

Disruption of aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 gene results in altered cortical bone structure and increased cortical bone mineral density in the femoral diaphysis of mice.

Introduction: Aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) degrades acetaldehyde produced by the metabolism of alcohol. The inactive ALDH2 phenotype is prevalent in East Asians, and an association between this ALDH2 polymorphism and osteoporosis has been reported. In our previous study, we found that alcohol consumption results in decreased trabecular bone volume in aldh2 knockout (aldh2(-/-)) mice compared with the volume in wild-type (aldh2(+/+)) mice.