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Updated: Jan 29, 2026

Software-Assisted Quantitative Measurement of Osteoarthritic Subchondral Bone Thickness
Published on: March 18, 2022
Peptidomic analysis of cartilage and subchondral bone in OA patients
Birgitta Gatenholm1,2, Johan Gobom3,4, Tobias Skillbäck3,4
1Department of Orthopaedics, Institute of Clinical Sciences, the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Background:
The objective of this study was to develop a method for directly analysing osteochondral samples straight out of the operating room without cell culturing, thereby enabling identification of potential peptide biomarkers to better understand the mechanisms involved in the development of osteoarthritis and pain.
Material And Methods:
Osteochondral plugs from wounded and macroscopically nonwounded zones of the femur condyle were collected from six patients with manifest osteoarthritis (OA) undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The samples were demineralized and supernatant was collected and isotopically marked with Tandem Mass Tag (TMT) labelling and analysed using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry LC-MS/MS.
Results:
Using peptidomics, 6292 endogenous peptides were identified. Five hundred sixty-six peptides (8 identified endogenous peptides) differed significantly (P-value 0.10) from wounded zones compared to nonwounded zones.
Conclusion:
This pilot study shows promising results for enabling peptidomic analysis of cartilage and bone straight out of the operating room. With further refinement, peptidomics can potentially become a diagnostic tool for OA, and improve the knowledge of disease progression and genesis of pain.
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