Specific premature epigenetic aging of cartilage in osteoarthritis

Vidal-Bralo L, Lopez-Golan Y, Mera-Varela A, Rego-Perez I, Horvath S, Zhang Y, Del Real Á, Zhai G, Blanco FJ, Riancho JA, Gomez-Reino JJ, Gonzalez A · Aging (Albany NY)

Osteoarthritis cartilage was epigenetically 3.7 years older than control cartilage (95% CI 1.1 to 6.3, P = 0.008). Bone showed no difference (0.04 years, 95% CI -1.8 to 1.9) and neither did blood in any joint subgroup (hand 0.01 years, knee 0.04, hip -0.7, none significant), so the premature epigenetic ageing was specific to the cartilage.

Population

Cartilage from 31 knee and hip osteoarthritis patients and 36 controls, bone from 33 patients and 45 controls, and blood from 708 hand, knee and hip osteoarthritis patients and 182 controls without osteoarthritis

Intervention

DNA-methylation age estimators: the multi-tissue clock for cartilage and bone and an eight-CpG blood clock

Comparator

Controls without osteoarthritis, adjusted for age and sex

Limitations

Cross-sectional; cartilage from end-stage joints; controls for cartilage were partly cadaver donors and fracture patients. Funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III with EU regional development funds; no conflict declared. The blood result is the one that bears on any systemic anti-ageing claim: a treatment that slows ageing in blood cells would be acting on a compartment this study found not to be prematurely aged in osteoarthritis.