Identification of serum snornas as biomarkers of musculoskeletal ageing and disease

Abstract

Results: Participants were young (median age 25), mostly male, largely Caucasian and had substantial impairment and pain by KOOS at baseline (within 8 weeks of their injury, median time to baseline 17 days). For rs143383 genotype of 131 participants, 37 (28%) were TT, 81 (62%) were heterozygotes and 13 (10%) CC. There was no significant difference between the KOOS 4 of individuals with TT, TC or CC genotypes at baseline. There were similar increases in KOOS 4 in TT and TC individuals over the 3 month period (P<0.0001 for each). In contrast, KOOS 4 did not increase significantly over 3 months in CC homozygotes (P ¼ 0.35). A very similar pattern was seen for the rs143384 genotype, in terms of genotype frequency and change in KOOS over time. In a linear regression model of change in KOOS 4 over the 3 month period, CC at rs143383 was significantly associated with a smaller improvement in KOOS 4 compared with TC/TT (unadjusted coeff. À12.58 (À24.15, À1.0), P ¼ 0.033. When adjusted for other pre-defined explanatory variables (Age, Gender, extent of injury) a significant effect remained for the CC genotype (coeff. À11.89 (À23.48, À0.32), P ¼ 0.044. Conclusions: Possession of the CC genotype at SNP rs143383 of GDF-5 would appear to be an adverse prognostic factor for early clinical outcome after knee injury in this cohort.This finding should be tested in other joint injury cohorts, in larger numbers of individuals and in other populations. What effect this polymorphism has on subsequent incidence of post-traumatic osteoarthritis remains to be established.