Genetic, hormonal and behavioural influence on spontaneously developing arthritis in normal mice

Abstract

SUMMARYDBA/1 male mice develop arthritis spontaneously at the age of 4 months. The affected joints show cell-rich pannus rormaliun without T cell infiltration and only limited MHC class II expression. Specific palhogcn-lrce DBA/1 mice from different sources developed ihe same disease. Analyses of inbred mouse strains with various genetic backgrounds and FI hybrids revealed that the disease is genetically dependent of DBA/I recessive genes. However. FI hybrids between DBA/1 and BXSB spontaneously developed arthritis with earlier onset than DBA/I mice, suggesting that the BXSB autoimmune gene background had both permissive and contributing efTects on the development of arthritis. The complete male preponderance for disease susceptibility was investigated by castration and testosterone treatment of DBA/1 males. No arthritis developed after castration and disease susceptibility was restored by testosterone treatment. Arthritis developed only where more than two males were kept in cages, suggesting an influence by aggressive behaviour. Thus, the spontaneous development ofarthritis is dependent on hormonal and behavioural mediated elTects and differs from experimental models for rheumatoid arthritis such as type II collagen-induced arthritis and pristaneinduced arthritis. We conclude that the spontaneously developing arlhritis in the normal DBA/I strain may be more useful as a disease model for osteoarthritis than for rheumatoid arthritis.Keywords spontaneous arthritis type 11 eoilagen testosterone aggressive behaviour

RANKL, OPG and CTR mRNA expression in the temporomandibular joint in rheumatoid arthritis

“…These findings are in contrast to those of CIA of the knee joint, where swelling and erythema are frequently observed and used to grade the severity of arthritis (22,23). The fact that TMJ swelling is rarely observed, in contrast to swelling of the knee joint, is likely due to the fact that the inflammatory exudate is able to be distributed into anatomical spaces medial, posterior and anterior to the TMJ, thus causing less external swelling.…”

Collagen-induced arthritis

“…Additionally, the kinetics of arthritis development can vary from experiment to experiment as evidenced by the comparison of the incidence rate in the two independent experiments shown in Figure 2. Older male DBA/1 mice (44 months of age) should be avoided for CIA experiments as there is some evidence that these mice develop a spontaneous arthritis 26,27 . These patterns are similar in all of the arthritis-susceptible strains, with the possible exception of the C57BL/6 (B6) mouse.…”

Reactive Oxygen Species in Psoriasis and Psoriasis Arthritis: Relevance to Human Disease

“…Male mice of the DBA/1 strains, when grouped after puberty, develop stress due to intermale aggressiveness and then develop a severe arthritis characterized by swollen joints, inflammation and enthesitis, a disease believed to be caused by an exaggerated healing response [41,42]. There are also a number of spontaneous mutations causing Ps phenotypes.…”