Genetic biomarkers in osteoarthritis: a quick overview

Fac Rev. 2021 Nov 10:10:78. doi: 10.12703/r/10-78. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic musculoskeletal disease with a polygenic and heterogeneous nature. In addition, when clinical manifestations appear, the evolution of the disease is usually already irreversible. Therefore, the efforts on OA research are focused mainly on the discovery of therapeutic targets and reliable biomarkers that permit the early identification of different OA-related parameters such as diagnosis, prognosis, or phenotype identification. To date, potential candidate protein biomarkers have been associated with different aspects of the disease; however, there is currently no gold standard. In this sense, genomic data could act as complementary biomarkers of diagnosis and prognosis or even help to identify therapeutic targets of the disease. In this review, we will describe the most recent advances in genetic biomarkers in OA over the past three years.

Keywords: Biomarkers; Genetics; Osteoarthritis.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

This work is supported by grants from Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (PI17/00210, PI16/02124, PI20/00614, RETIC-RIER-RD16/0012/0002, and PRB3-ISCIII-PT17/0019/0014) integrated in the National Plan for Scientific Program, Development and Technological Innovation 2013–2016 and funded by the ISCIII-General Subdirection of Assessment and Promotion of Research-European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) “A way of making Europe” and grant IN607A2017/11 from Xunta de Galicia. The authors further acknowledge AE CICA-INIBIC (ED431E 2018/03) for financial support. IRP is supported by Contrato Miguel Servet-II Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (CPII17/00026), and AD-S is supported by grant IN606A-2018/023 from Xunta de Galicia, Spain. The Biomedical Research Networking Center (CIBER) is an initiative from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII).