A research breakthrough by Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has uncovered over 900 genetic inks to osteoarthritis, 500 of which were previously unreported.
Published in the Nature journal, the study conducted the largest ever genome-wide association study on osteoarthritis. It used genetic information from almost two million people.
The study compared the genetic codes of almost half a million people with osteoarthritis to 1.5 million without the condition, and consequently identified 962 genetic variations more commonly found in those with osteoarthritis. 513 of these were newly discovered.
These findings make future drug treatments and personalised therapies possible in the future.
Osteoarthritis is the global leading cause of disability and chronic pain and affects around 595 million people, which is predicted to rise to one billion by 2050.
Despite its prevalence, there are no disease-modifying treatments available. Ten per cent of these genes encode proteins already targeted by drugs approved for other conditions, which is good news as it means treatment development could come faster.
By integrating diverse biomedical datasets, researchers identified 700 genetic disease-associated variants implicated in osteoarthritis development and discovered eight biological processes involved in regulating the body’s internal systems and cell function, including circadian rhythm and development signalling pathways.
Professor Mark Wilkinson, professor of orthopaedics at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “These are hugely important findings which open up exciting new avenues in our search to find new drug treatments for the millions of people living with osteoarthritis.
"As well as identifying potential drug targets and opportunities for us to repurpose existing treatments that already target these genes in other conditions, this research has also significantly advanced our understanding of the underlying biological mechanism associated with the disease. This holds enormous potential, in terms of developing more effective and personalised therapies and transforming future care.”
