New treatment for osteoarthritis:Gene therapy

Osteoarthritis is a complex degenerative disease that affects the entire joint tissue.Currently,non-surgical treatments for osteoarthritis focus on relieving pain.While end-stage osteoarthritis can be treated with arthroplasty,the health and financial costs associated with surgery have forced the search for alternative non-surgical treatments to delay the progression of osteoarthritis and promote cartilage repair.Unlike traditional treatment,the gene therapy approach allows for long-lasting expression of therapeutic proteins at specific sites.In this review,we summarize the history of gene therapy in osteoarthritis,outlining the common expression vectors(non-viral,viral),the genes delivered(transcription factors,growth factors,inflammation-associated cytokines,non-coding RNAs)and the mode of gene delivery(direct delivery,indirect delivery).We highlight the application and development prospects of the gene editing technology CRISPR/Cas9 in osteoarthritis.Finally,we identify the current problems and possible solutions in the clinical translation of gene therapy for osteoarthritis.