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Micro-current stimulation could inhibit IL-1β-induced inflammatory responses in chondrocytes and protect knee bone cartilage from osteoarthritis

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Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the inhibitory effects of micro-current stimulation (MCS) on inflammatory responses in chondrocytes and degradation of extracellular matrix (ECM) in osteoarthritis (OA). To determine the efficacy of MCS, IL-1β-treated chondrocytes and monosodium iodoacetate (MIA)-induced OA rat model were used. To evaluate the cytotoxicity and nitric oxide (NO) production in SW1353 cells, the presence or absence of IL-1β treatment or various levels of MCS were applied. Immunoblot analysis was conducted to evaluate whether MCS can modulate IL-1R1/MyD88/NF-κB signaling pathway and various indicators involved in ECM degradation. Additionally, to determine whether MCS alleviates subchondral bone structure destruction caused by OA, micro-CT analysis, immunoblot analysis, and ELISA were conducted using OA rat model. 25 and 50 µA levels of MCS showed effects in cell proliferation and NO production. The MCS group with IL-1β treatment lead to significant inhibition of protein expression levels regarding IL-1R1/MyD88/NF-κB signaling and reduction of the nucleus translocation of NF-κB. In addition, the protein expression levels of MMP-1, MMP-3, MMP-13, and IL-1β decreased, whereas collagen II and aggrecan increased. In animal results, morphological analysis of subchondral bone using micro-CT showed that MCS induced subchondral bone regeneration and improvement, as evidenced by increased thickness and bone mineral density of the subchondral bone. Furthermore, MCS-applied groups showed decreases in the protein expression of MMP-1 and MMP-3, while increases in collagen-II and aggrecan expressions. These findings suggest that MCS has the potential to be used as a non-pharmaceutical method to alleviate OA.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2021R1A2C2093828) and "Regional Innovation Strategy (RIS)" through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (MOE) (2022RIS-005).

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Author notes

  1. Minjoo Lee and Hana Lee contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Yonsei University, Gangwon, 26493, South Korea

    Minjoo Lee, Hana Lee, Halim Chung, Doyong Kim & Han Sung Kim

  2. Division of Biological Science and Technology, Yonsei University, Gangwon, 26493, South Korea

    Jin-Ho Lee & Tack-Joong Kim

  3. Gfyhealth Inc, Gyeonggi, 13488, South Korea

    Seungkwan Cho

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  1. Minjoo Lee
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Contributions

M. Lee, H. Lee, and H.S. Kim contributed to the study conception, data collection, and analysis. The first draft was written by M. Lee and H. Lee and all authors edited and supervised the revisions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Han Sung Kim.

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The protocols for all procedures were approved by the Yonsei University Animal Care Committee (YWCI-202102-002-01).

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Lee, M., Lee, H., Chung, H. et al. Micro-current stimulation could inhibit IL-1β-induced inflammatory responses in chondrocytes and protect knee bone cartilage from osteoarthritis. Biomed. Eng. Lett. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13534-024-00376-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13534-024-00376-1

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