Expression and pathological effects of periostin in human osteoarthritis cartilage.

Background Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common joint diseases in elderly people, however, the underlying mechanism of OA pathogenesis is not completely clear. Periostin, the extracellular protein, has been shown by cDNA array analysis to be highly expressed in OA, but its function is not fully understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the expression and function of periostin in human OA.