Thesis supervisor: Tamás Oláh
Location of studies (in Hungarian): University of Debrecen, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Physiology Abbreviation of location of studies: DEÉI
Description of the research topic:
Osteoarthritis (OA) is an incurable joint disease, a leading cause of permanent disability and a growing socioeconomic problem in Western countries with ageing populations and typically sedentary lifestyles. As there is currently no real cure for the disease, apart from symptomatic and surgical treatments, the focus should be on prevention. Sarcopenia, atrophy and muscle weakness reduce the stability of the knee joint and are therefore considered risk factors for OA. However, the available data on the direct relationship between muscle mass and OA are rather heterogeneous, and whether increased muscle mass and strength can prevent surgically induced OA remains poorly established experimentally. In the present work we aim to address this question of direct clinical relevance in mouse experiments.
Our group has at its disposal hypermuscular and muscle atrophic mutant mouse strains and can perform surgical induction of OA, allowing us to investigate the effect of muscle mass on the development of OA under standardized conditions. Degenerative changes in cartilage will be investigated by histopathology and immunohistochemistry, microstructural changes in the subchondral bone by high-resolution micro-CT, and muscle adaptation by in vivo muscle strength tests and ex vivo muscle force measurements.
Our expected results may help to clarify whether increasing muscle mass and strength helps to prevent or treat OA.
Required language skills: English intermediate level Number of students who can be accepted: 1
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