Establishment of in vivo imaging and quantification of articular cartilage by using a cartilage-specific probe.

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K15551
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Orthopaedic surgery
• Research Institution: Okayama University
• Principal Investigator: Oohashi Toshitaka 岡山大学, 医歯薬学総合研究科, 教授 (50194262)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): HIROHATA Satoshi 岡山大学, 大学院保健学研究科, 教授 (90332791) ; OHTSUKI Takakashi 岡山大学, 大学院保健学研究科, 客員研究員 (10534802)
• Research Collaborator: ASZDI Attila ミュンヘン大学, 外科学再生医療部門, 教授
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 軟骨変性 / プロテオグリカン / X線 / nano CT

Outline of Final Research Achievements

A new X-ray imaging probe 2Ke2-TIB has been created in addition to Ke4-TIB. These probes were examined for in vivo imaging of articular cartilage by CT using rat osteoarthritic model. A new patent regarding Ke4-TIB has been established on March 24th, 2017. Since we speculate the increasing use of mouse genetic model for drug discovery research, we created a new mouse genetic model by crossing floxed "A" gene mice, encoding a proteoglycan gene abundant in the articular cartilage, with Rosa26-creERT mice. The mice exhibited a dwarfism and articular cartilage degeneration after starting injection of tamoxifen at one week of age. These developments of new imaging probes and a mouse model will contribute to the future research on osteoarthritis drug discovery. A collaboration with a group in the University of Munich has started for nano Xray CT.

Free Research Field

軟骨代謝学