Author(s)

Wei Huacheng ¹, Mo Suhui ²

Affiliation(s)

¹ Department of Orthopedics and Joint Surgery, Nanning First People's Hospital, Nanning, Guangxi, China
² Radiotherapy Center, The Third People's Hospital of Hechi City, Hechi City, Guangxi, China

Corresponding Author

Mo Suhui

ABSTRACT

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic degenerative joint disease characterized by progressive cartilage degeneration and persistent inflammatory responses. This study aimed to investigate the therapeutic effects of intra-articular injection of a PAA-mPEG-MSNs-miR129-3p nanodelivery system on cartilage degeneration in a rat OA model and to explore its potential mechanisms. An OA model was established in rats by unilateral intra-articular injection of iodoacetic acid. Thirty rats were randomly divided into a normal group, model group, and PAA-mPEG-MSNs-miR129-3p treatment group (n = 10 per group). The treatment group received intra-articular injection of PAA-mPEG-MSNs-miR129-3p once weekly for four consecutive weeks, while the model group received an equivalent volume of blank carrier. After the intervention period, knee joint swelling and histological changes in cartilage tissue were evaluated using hematoxylin–eosin staining. The expression of the inflammation-related protein MMP-13 was detected by immunohistochemistry, and the mRNA expression levels of autophagy-related genes LC3B and Beclin-1 were analyzed using quantitative real-time PCR. Compared with the normal group, rats in the model group showed significant knee swelling, severe cartilage structural damage, markedly increased MMP-13 expression, and significantly decreased LC3B and Beclin-1 mRNA levels (P < 0.05). In contrast, treatment with PAA-mPEG-MSNs-miR129-3p significantly reduced joint swelling, improved cartilage histological structure, decreased MMP-13 expression, and increased the expression levels of LC3B and Beclin-1 (P < 0.05). These findings suggest that PAA-mPEG-MSNs-miR129-3p can alleviate cartilage degeneration and inflammatory responses in OA rats and enhance autophagy-related gene expression, indicating that its chondroprotective effects may be associated with restoration of autophagy activity and inhibition of inflammation-mediated cartilage degradation.

KEYWORDS

Osteoarthritis; miR129-3p; Nanocarrier; Autophagy; MMP-13

CITE THIS PAPER

Wei Huacheng, Mo Suhui. Experimental Study on PAA-mPEG-MSNs-miR129-3p Improving Rat Osteoarthritis Cartilage Degeneration by Upregulating Autophagy to Inhibit Inflammatory Response. MEDS Public Health and Preventive Medicine (2026). Vol. 6, No.1, 10-16. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/phpm.2026.060102.

REFERENCES

[1] Scerif F, Eldridge SE. Osteoarthritis year in review 2025: Biology. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. 2026;34(2):213-220.
[2] Tang S, Zhang C, Oo WM, et al. Osteoarthritis. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2025,11(1):10.
[3] Collins KH, Haugen IK, Neogi T, Guilak F. Osteoarthritis as a systemic disease. Nat Rev Rheumatol. 2026,22(2):105-117.
[4] Hu Q, Ecker M. Overview of MMP-13 as a Promising Target for the Treatment of Osteoarthritis. Int J Mol Sci. 2021, 22(4):1742.
[5] Yang T, Li C, Li Y, et al. MicroRNA-146a-5p alleviates the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis by inhibiting SDF-1/CXCR4-induced chondrocyte autophagy. Int Immunopharmacol. 2023,117:109938.
[6] Rockel JS, Wu B, Nakamura S, et al. TAT-Beclin-1 induces severe synovial hyperplasia and does not protect from injury-induced osteoarthritis in mice. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. 2020,28(10):1394-1400.
[7] Liu H, Yan L, Li X, et al. MicroRNA expression in osteoarthritis: a meta-analysis. Clin Exp Med. 2023,23(7):3737-3749.
[8] Morici L, Allémann E, Rodríguez-Nogales C, Jordan O. Cartilage-targeted drug nanocarriers for osteoarthritis therapy. Int J Pharm. 2024,666:124843.
[9] Geng N, Fan M, Kuang B, et al. 10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid prevents osteoarthritis by targeting aspartyl β hydroxylase and inhibiting chondrocyte senescence in male mice preclinically. Nat Commun. 2024,15(1):7712.
[10] Liu Q, Han M, Wu Z, et al. DDX5 inhibits hyaline cartilage fibrosis and degradation in osteoarthritis via alternative splicing and G-quadruplex unwinding. Nat Aging. 2024,4(5):664-680.
[11] Wang J, Yang J, Fang Y, et al. Vinpocetine protects against osteoarthritis by inhibiting ferroptosis and extracellular matrix degradation via activation of theNrf2/GPX4 pathway. Phytomedicine. 2024,135:156115.
[12] Katz JN, Arant KR, Loeser RF. Diagnosis and Treatment of Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis: A Review. JAMA. 2021,325(6):568-578.
[13] Jeon H, Im GI. Autophagy in osteoarthritis. Connect Tissue Res. 2017,58(6):497-508.
[14] Qin J, Zhang J, Wu JJ, et al. Identification of autophagy-related genes in osteoarthritis articular cartilage and their roles in immune infiltration. Front Immunol. 2023,14:1263988.
[15] An F, Sun B, Liu Y, et al. Advances in understanding effects of miRNAs on apoptosis, autophagy, and pyroptosis in knee osteoarthritis. Mol Genet Genomics. 2023,298(6):1261-1278.
[16] Li H, Li Z, Pi Y, et al. MicroRNA-375 exacerbates knee osteoarthritis through repressing chondrocyte autophagy by targeting ATG2B. Aging (Albany NY). 2020,12(8):7248-7261.
[17] Feng L, Yang Z, Li Y, et al. MicroRNA-378 contributes to osteoarthritis by regulating chondrocyte autophagy and bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell chondrogenesis. Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. 2022,28:328-341.
[18] Alahverdi M, Dadmehr M, Sahebkar A. Nanocarriers for microRNA delivery: A review of applied platforms and perspectives. Int J Biol Macromol. 2025;319(Pt 3):145463.

Sponsors, Associates, and Links

---

• MEDS Clinical Medicine
  
  
• Journal of Neurobiology and Genetics
  
  
• Medical Imaging and Nuclear Medicine
  
  
• Bacterial Genetics and Ecology
  
  
• Transactions on Cancer
  
  
• Journal of Biophysics and Ecology
  
  
• Journal of Animal Science and Veterinary
  
  
• Academic Journal of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
  
  
• Transactions on Cell and Developmental Biology
  
  
• Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology
  
  
• Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine
  
  
• Hematology and Stem Cell
  
  
• Journal of Intelligent Informatics and Biomedical Engineering
  
  
• MEDS Basic Medicine
  
  
• MEDS Stomatology
  
  
• MEDS Chinese Medicine
  
  
• Journal of Enzyme Engineering
  
  
• Advances in Industrial Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
  
  
• Bacteriology and Microbiology
  
  
• Advances in Physiology and Pathophysiology
  
  
• Journal of Vision and Ophthalmology
  
  
• Frontiers of Obstetrics and Gynecology
  
  
• Digestive Disease and Diabetes
  
  
• Advances in Immunology and Vaccines
  
  
• Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery
  
  
• Cardiology and Vascular System
  
  
• Pediatrics and Child Health
  
  
• Journal of Reproductive Medicine and Contraception
  
  
• Journal of Respiratory and Lung Disease
  
  
• Journal of Bioinformatics and Biomedicine