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Natural chondroitin sulphates increase aggregation of proteoglycan complexes and decrease ADAMTS-5 expression in
K Tahiri1, C Korwin-Zmijowska, P Richette
1INSERM, UMR-747, Université Paris Descartes, Paris, F-75006, France.
Objective:
To assess the effect of natural chondroitin sulphate (CS) on the ability of neosynthesized sulphated proteoglycans (PGs) to aggregate in cultured chondrocytes treated with interleukin (IL)1 beta.
Methods:
Primary cultured rabbit articular chondrocytes were treated or not with IL1 beta alone or with concentrations of CS for 20 h. Neosynthesized PGs were labelled by incorporation of [35SO(4)]-sulphate and analysed by chromatography on Sepharose 2B columns. Gelatinolytic activity was measured by zymography, and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)1 mRNA level in chondrocytes underwent real-time PCR. Expression of ADAMTS (for "a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs") -4 and -5 was analysed by real-time PCR and western blotting.
Results:
The production of [35SO(4)]-labelled PGs was significantly increased with 10 microg/ml CS in the cellular pool rather than in the incubation medium. The addition of CS to IL1 beta-treated cells inhibited in part the disaggregation of sulphated PGs induced by IL1 beta. This inhibitory effect of CS is associated with a significant decrease in ADAMTS-5 expression at the mRNA and protein levels. No effect of CS was observed on IL1 beta-induced gelatinolytic activity, MMP1 mRNA expression or ADAMTS-4 expression.
Conclusion:
CS increases the production of functional sulphated PGs in the direct environment of chondrocytes in vitro. This beneficial effect of CS in IL1 beta-treated cells is associated with decreased expression of ADAMTS-5.
