The Arthritis Foundation recently came out with its list of the top 10 arthritis events for the year 2007. This series will focus on those events.

#10: Uncovering the importance of cadherin-11

Synovial tissue is found between surfaces of joints and provides lubrication and nutrients for the cartilage. When a person has inflammatory arthritis, such as rheumatoid arthritis, the synovial tissue experiences unregulated growth and forms a pannus, which attaches to and invades bone and cartilage surfaces, destroying them.

Cadherins are a transmembrane protein that provides adhesion between cells, ensuring that cells within the tissues are bound together.

Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, along with an international team of scientists, have discovered that blocking the action on cadherin-11 prevents the destruction of the bone and cartilage that typically occurs in inflammatory arthritis. Their study involved specially bred mice that developed autoimmune arthritis, some of which could produce cadherin-11 and some of which could not. Then they examined whether chemically interfering with cadherin-11 would act as a therapy against autoimmune arthritis in these mice.

The team discovered that when the inflamed joint tissue has no cadherin-11 present, the structural changes associated with the formation of pannus on the cartilage did not occur. Additionally, they found that chemically that interfering with the function of cadherin-11, inflammatory arthritis could be prevented in mice that had not yet developed the disease and could be alleviated in mice with established arthritis.