PTHrP buffers Wnt/β-catenin activity through a PKC-ζ involved negative feedback loop to maintain articular cartilage...

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disease worldwide and a leading cause of disability. The Wnt/β-catenin cascade is essential in articular cartilage development and homeostasis. Interruption of β-catenin (either overexpression or inhibition) leads to cartilage degeneration. However, the mechanism for stabilizing Wnt/β-catenin remains unclear.

We established the mouse destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) OA model and analyzed the clinical specimens to detect Wnt/β-catenin and PTHrP. The chondrocytes were isolated and treated with various cytokines including Wnt3a, Ihh, IL-1β, and PTHrP to reveal the molecular mechanism. Epigenetic and bioinformatic analyses were conducted to screen the key genes for the PTHrP regulation, and an Adeno-associated Virus (AAV) delivery system for PTHrP was established for OA gene therapy (prevention) application.

We confirmed the Wnt/β-catenin activation and PTHrP suppression in cartilage in post-traumatic OA. Wnt/β-catenin further upregulated PTHrP expression through binding to its promoter (P2), and induced mRNA (AT6) transcript expression. Unexpectedly, PTHrP repressed Wnt/β-catenin activity and formed a Wnt/β-catenin-PTHrP negative feedback loop in very primary chondrocytes to maintain cartilage homeostasis. However, this negative feedback loop vanished in dedifferentiated chondrocytes, hypertrophic chondrocytes, and IL-1β treated primary chondrocytes. In these chondrocytes under pathological conditions, we further found that miR-106b-5p was increased and directly targeted PTHrP mRNA to abolish the feedback loop. Using Bulk RNA-seq and KEGG analysis, we screened and confirmed that PKC-ζ was activated by PTHrP through phosphorylation at Thr410/403, and subsequently induced β-catenin phosphorylation, ubiquitination and degeneration. Finally, we disclosed that exogenous PTHrP attenuated OA progression.

This study reveals that PTHrP is a vital mediator in keeping Wnt/β-catenin homeostasis through a negative feedback loop similar to its role in balancing the Ihh pathway activity in the secondary ossification center and growth plate.

These findings highlight that PTHrP might be a therapeutic target for attenuating cartilage degeneration and OA process by the gene therapy approach.