Table 3.

The relationship between cartilage degeneration and C-CASP3 and matrix gene expression levels of chondrocytes

	Mild	Moderate	Severe	Mankin score
	(n = 5)	(n = 7)	(n = 8)	rs	P-value
C-CASP3 (%)	5.4 ± 1.6	9.2 ± 1.2	13.7 ± 1.9*	0.58	0.013
ACAN/GAPDH	1.00 ± 0.22	0.39 ± 0.07*	0.20 ± 0.04*,†	−0.77	0.001
COL2A1/GAPDH	1.00 ± 0.32	1.51 ± 0.54	1.47 ± 0.47	0.12	0.684

r_s, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient; C-CASP3, cleaved caspase-3.

The values are expressed as mean ± SEM. ACAN/GAPDH and COL2A1/GAPDH were normalized by averaged values of mild.

^*P < 0.05 vs. mild

^†P < 0.05 vs. moderate.