The Role of Nanoparticles-Mediated Ligustrazine in the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis and Its Effect on Matrix Metalloproteinases and Upstream NF-κB Signaling Pathway in Knee Osteoarthritis.

Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a joint degenerative arthropathy, characterized by cartilage degeneration of knee joint. Ligustrazine is an effective component of traditional Chinese medicine chuanqiong. It is reported that ligustrazine is used as a kind of anti-inflammatory medicine in folk prescription, especially in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis. The study is aimed to study the therapeutic effect of ligustrazine mediated by nanoparticle on knee osteoarthritis and its impact on MMPs and upstream NF-κB signaling pathway in synovial fluid. Nanoparticle-mediated system is a kind of nano traditional Chinese medicine preparation, which is made by taking nanoparticle and combining with the effective components, effective parts, raw materials, and their compounds in a certain way. We found that the combination of nanoparticle and ligustrazine can improve its bioavailability and targeting, reduce the adverse reactions in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis. The ligustrazine mediated by nanoparticle can effectively alleviate knee osteoarthritis by reducing the level of MMPs in synovial fluid and the expression of NF-κB in upstream NF-κB signaling pathway.