2.1 ANIMAIS
Thirty 4-months-old healthy adult female New Zealand rabbits weighing 2.0-2.5KG were provided by the Animal Experimental Center of Chongqing Medical University. Animals were housed in individual cages with a 12:12‑h light‑dark cycle at 20‑26˚C, and received a standard laboratory diet and drinking water. Laboratory animal production license number: SCXK (Chongqing) 2017-0001.
2.2 Experimental design
30 female New Zealand rabbits were randomly divided into 3 groups with 10 in each group: normal group, OP+OA group, and OA group. The OA group experienced OA surgery on right knees, the OP + OA group OA surgery and ovariectomy. After BMD/BMC measurement, all animals were killed in 4 weeks after OA surgery.
2.3 | Ovariectomy
The rabbits were anesthetized by intraperitoneal injection of 0.035g/kg chloral hydrate. After the anesthesia, the rabbits were fixed on the operating table in prone position. With routine skin preparation, routine disinfection and draping, we entered the abdominal cavity of rabbits through the middle and lower abdominal incision, and removed both ovaries, and carefully stopped the bleeding. After cleaning, we sutured the muscle, subcutaneous tissue and skin layer by layer[8].
2.4 OA surgery
Under aseptic conditions, an incision of about 2 cm was made along the inner side of the right knee joint to expose the knee joint to cut off the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments and medial collateral ligament, and completely resect the medial meniscus, suture the joint cavity layer by layer[6]. After operation, penicillin was injected intramuscularly at 2×104 U/kg every day for one week, and the rabbits were driven to run for 30 minutes every day for 4 weeks.
2.5 Tissue sampling and morphological testing
Take the rabbits’ right knee articular cartilage platform and subchondral bone. The tissue is divided into two parts. One part was put into the marked EP tube and immediately placed in a liquid nitrogen tank for quick freezing, and then transferred to -80℃ for storage in the refrigerator for testing; another part is fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde solution and embedded.
The general conditions of rabbit synovium, joint capsule, joint fluid and articular cartilage in each group, and Pelletier-JP [9] standard score were visually observed and recorded; Scoring criteria: 0 is the articular surface is smooth and the color is as usual; 1 is the articular surface is rough, cracked, and the color is dark; 2 is the articular surface erosion, cartilage defect reaches the cartilage surface and middle layer; 3 is the articular surface ulcer formation, Cartilage defect reaches deep cartilage; 4 is divided into cartilage exfoliation and subchondral bone exposure
The rabbits’ right knee articular cartilage and subchondral bone were fixed at 24h with 4% polyformaldehyde solution, and paraffin slices after 10% EDTA decalcium 15 days later, HE staining was deployed to observe the cartilage tissue structure, cell count and tidal line integrity. The scoring was based on the Mankin's method[10]. Level 0 is normal, level 1 is surface damage, level 2 is vascular palate and surface damage, level 3 is shallow fissure formation, level 4 is the fractured deep bone fissure, level 5 is a large area of deep bone cartilage deficiency, level 6 is all lost cartilage in the weight-bearing area.
2.6 Immunohistochemistry assays
After paraffin sections are deparaffinized and dehydrated, endogenous peroxidase was inactivated with 3% H2O2, the tissue antigen activity was repaired by trypsin digestion solution, and 1:1000 diluted mouse IL-1β monoclonal antibody was added and incubated at 4°C overnight. Rinse with PBS 3 times, 5min/time. Add biotin-labeled secondary antibody dropwise, and incubate at 37°C for 30 minutes; rinse with PBS 3 times, 5 min/time. Add SABC-HRP and incubate at 37°C for 30 minutes. Rinse with PBS 3 times, 5min/time. DAB develops color at room temperature, and the reaction is terminated by washing with tap water. Hematoxylin was counter-stained for 3 minutes, hydrochloric acid and alcohol were differentiated for 2 seconds, and lithium carbonate was counter-stained for 1 minute. After alcohol dehydration, the slides were mounted with gum and observed under an optical microscope. Take 5 slices in each group, use an optical microscope to magnify 200 times, randomly select 5 fields, and determine the IOD by Image-Pro Plus image analysis software.
2.7 Fluorescence quantitative Q-PCR detection
Take 30 mg of cartilage and grind it into powder under liquid nitrogen. Use TRizon to extract total RNA from the tissue, and measure the absorbance (A) of the sample with an ultraviolet spectrophotometer. Reverse transcription into cDNA and PCR amplification. After amplification, the BRO-RAD gel image analysis software was used to determine the amplification curves of each group of target genes and internal controls, and calculate the difference in CT values. The primer sequences are shown in Table 1.
2.8 Western blot analysis
Take out cartilage tissue at -80℃, extract protein with RIPA kit (Biyuntian company), measure protein concentration by BCA method, Load the sample in 50ug wells. After electrophoresis on a 10% SDS-PAGE gel, the protein was transferred to a 0.45um pore PVDF membrane by wet transfer method, and then blocked with 5% BSA at 37°C for 2 hours. These antibodies included goat anti-OPG (R&D Systems, Abingdon, UK) at 1/500 dilution, rabbit anti-sOPGL (Prepotech, Neuilly-Sur-Seine, France) at 1/500, anti-IL-1β(Proteintech, Wuhan, China)at 1/500, CPT1B(Abcam, Cambridge, MA, USA)at 1/500and anti-β-ACTIN(Abcam, Cambridge, MA, USA)polyclonal antibodies (diluted 1:200), overnight at 4°C, wash with TBST 3 times, 15 minutes each. Then apply the secondary antibody and place it at 37°C for 1 hour, then rinse with TBST 3 times for 15 minutes each time. Apply BeyoECL luminescent liquid in a dark room, use ChemiDoc XRS gel/luminescence image analysis system to develop protein bands, and use Quantity One software to calculate the gray value of the bands.
2.9 Statistical analysis
SPSS 13.0 statistical software was used for analysis. The data were expressed as mean ± standard error of mean (SEM) unless otherwise stated. For more than a 2-group comparison, one-way ANOVA was conducted followed by a post-hoc test using Fisher's protected least significant difference. For a 2-group comparison, Student's t test was conducted. The count data was used by χ2 test. Differences were considered significant when P < 0.05.