Fig. 7.

In vitro transcribed Wwp2 mRNA prevents mouse articular cartilage destruction. a, b Effect of in vivo intra-articular injection of IVT mRNA on gene expression in cartilage. IVT Wwp2 (or control EGFP) mRNAs (ψ, 5mCTP) with atelocollagen and Invivofectamine 3.0 reagent were injected into knee joints of Wwp2 KO mice. a Schedule of in vivo transfection. b RT-qPCR for OA related genes in Wwp2-transfected cartilages from injected 3-month-old Wwp2 KO mice (n = 5, Student’s t test, normalized with Gapdh or U6snRNA). c–e Treatment using IVT Wwp2 mRNA (ψ, 5mCTP) against surgically induced OA model in C57BL/6 mice. c Schedule of treatment. d Representative images of Safranin-O staining. e The maximum OARSI scores (n = 13-15, Student’s t test). f, g IHC of Runx2 and Adamts5 for IVT mRNA-treated mouse articular cartilage. f Representative images. Negative control was stained using rabbit control IgG. g Runx2 and Adamts5 positive cell rates (n = 6, Student’s t test). h Summarized schema of this study. Black scale bar = 1 mm. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. Data are presented as the mean ± SD