Figure 1.

Increased autophagy and cartilage damage in a monosodium iodoacetate (MIA)-induced osteoarthritis model. (a) A histologic feature of knee joints in the MIA-induced osteoarthritis (OA) model. At 3 days after injection, the joint sections were stained with Safranin-O/Fast Green. (b) Representative hematoxylin stained sections of knee joints on dependent of MIA dose after 3 days. Black arrowheads indicate the chondrocytic cell death in damaged cartilage areas. (c) Quantitative analysis for empty lacunae due to chondrocytes death. (d) Expression of LC3B and p62 in knee cartilage was measured by immunohistochemistry. (e) The density of each protein was quantified with Image J. (f) Rats were subjected to behavioral tests using von Frey filaments to evaluate the effect of MIA-induced OA. Scale bar = 50 µm.