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Updated: Oct 13, 2025
The Lower Body Positive Pressure Treadmill for Knee Osteoarthritis Rehabilitation
Published on: July 22, 2019
Moderate-intensity treadmill running relieves motion-induced post-traumatic osteoarthritis mice by up-regulating the
Xuchang Zhou1, Hong Cao1, Miao Wang1
1School of Kinesiology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.
Background:
The purpose of this study was to explore whether moderate-intensity exercise can alleviate motion-induced post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) and the expression change of lncRNA H19 during this progression.
Methods:
Twenty-week-old male C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into five groups: model control group (MC group, n = 6), treadmill model group (M group, n = 6), rehabilitation control group (RC group, n = 6), treadmill model + rehabilitation training group (M + R group, n = 6) and treadmill model + convalescent group (M + C group, n = 6). Paraffin sections were used to observe the pathological changes in the mouse knee joint in each group. A micro-CT was used to scan the knee joint to obtain the morphological indexes of the tibial plateau bone. Real-time PCR was used to detect the mRNA levels of inflammatory factors, synthetic and catabolic factors in cartilage.
Results:
After high-intensity exercise for 4 weeks, the inflammation and catabolism of the mouse knee cartilage were enhanced, and the anabolism was weakened. Further study showed that these results were partially reversed after 4-week moderate-intensity training. The results of hematoxylin-eosin staining confirmed this finding. Meanwhile, high-intensity exercise reduced the expression of lncRNA H19 in cartilage, while the expression of lncRNA H19 increased after 4 weeks of moderate-intensity exercise.
Conclusion:
High-intensity treadmill running can cause injury to the knee cartilage in C57BL/6 mice which leads to PTOA and a decrease of lncRNA H19 expression in cartilage. Moderate-intensity exercise can relieve PTOA and partially reverse lncRNA H19 expression.
