title: Expression of nucleostemin gene in primary osteoarthritis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The identification of genes associated with osteoarthritis can help reveal underlying biological mechanisms that may lead to development of new therapeutic targets or biomarkers for early detection and risk stratification. Nucleostemin (GNL3) is a nucleolar GTPase initially identified in the nucleolus of rat neural stem cells. The current study was conducted to determine the expression of nucleostemin gene in the synovium and synovial fluid of patients with primary osteoarthritis and to correlate its expression to the different clinicopathological factors of the disease.
  
  
  METHODS
  It included 31 patients with primary knee osteoarthritis and 25 osteoarthritis free patients served as a control group. Synovial tissue and synovial fluid samples were obtained directly from each patient for real time PCR of GNL3.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Relative expression of GNL3 in synovial tissue and fluid samples was significantly higher in the osteoarthritic group as compared to the non-osteoarthritic group. GNL3 relative expression in both samples showed a significant difference among different BMI categories and among different radiographic grades of osteoarthritis. A high significant correlation was found between GNL3 relative expression levels in synovial tissue samples and those of synovial fluid samples with concordance of 85.7%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Nucleostemin could serve as a powerful prognostic marker for clinical use in osteoarthritis and its usefulness needs to be standardized and validated in a large-scale prospective multicentric study.
authors.affiliation: Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. Electronic address: manal_louka71@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Manal L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Louka
authors.affiliation: Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: Zeiad M
authors.initials: ZM
authors.lastname: Zakaria
authors.affiliation: Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: Magda M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Nagaty
authors.affiliation: Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: Mahmoud A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Elsebaie
authors.affiliation: Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: Lobna M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Nabil
mesh_terms: D015992:Body Mass Index; D005260:Female; D019204:GTP-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D020370:Osteoarthritis, Knee / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D013582:Synovial Fluid / Q000378:metabolism; D013583:Synovial Membrane / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: C469949:GNL3 protein, human; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D019204:GTP-Binding Proteins
keywords: GNL3; Osteoarthritis; Synovial fluid; Synovial tissue