Differential display reverse transcription PCR reveals IL-1 induced gene expression patterns in human articular chondrocytes

IL-1 exerts diverse effects on the metabolism of articular chondrocytes, including inhibition of proteoglycan synthesis and stimulation of matrix metallopro teinase synthesis. Therefore it is believed that IL-1 might play an important role in cartilage degradation in osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis. To improve our understanding of IL-1 induced effects on overall gene expression patterns of human articular chondrocytes, wc used a novel mRNA fingerprinting technique: Differential Display Reverse Transcription-PCR (DDRT-PCR) (Liang and Pardee 1992). The reported high sensitivity of this powerful technique promised to enable work with human articular cartilage, a tissue from which only small amounts of RNA can be obtained, and to get access to low abundance transcripts, difficult to detect with conventional subtractive hybridization studies. Our goal was to eventually identify new marker genes and pharmacological target molecules for drug intervention in IL-1 mediated cartilage degradation.