Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 24 pp 26029—26046

Figure 8. Effect of DUSP5 overexpression and knockdown on rat OA model. Fifty rats were randomly divided into five groups (10 rats in each group). The rats in the Sham group received sham surgery as blank control. The other 40 rats underwent DMM surgical removal of the medial meniscus and were regarded as OA rats. Lentivirus particles overexpressing DUSP5 (1×10⁸ TU/mL) were injected intra-articularly into rats in the Len-OE group. Lentivirus-shDUSP5 particles (1×10⁸ TU/mL) were injected intra-articularly into rats in the Sh-KD group. Lentivirus-control particles (1×10⁸ TU/mL) were injected intra-articularly into rats in the Len-NC group used as the control for Len-OE. Lentivirus-shControl particles (1×10⁸ TU/mL) were injected intra-articularly into rats in the Sh-NC group used as the control for Sh-KD. PBS was injected intra-articularly into rats in the Sham group. Rats were sacrificed at 8 weeks post-DMM surgery from each group. (A, B) The protein expression and quantitation of iNOS, MMP9, MMP13, p-p65, p-ERK, DUSP5, TIMP3, and IL-10. GAPDH was used as the control. (C) Microscopic images of COX2 immunofluorescence analysis and safranin O staining of rat knee joint sections. Blue, DAPI; red, COX2. (D) The OARSI grading system (0–6) (obtained from experiments of 10 knees each group) was used to evaluate the sections. (E) Quantitation of immunofluorescence staining of COX2. *p < 0.05, **p<0.01.