Fig 2: Immunohistochemical study showed the protein expression of collagen II, MMP13, ADAMTS5, and TNF-a in rabbit articular cartilage tissue from different treatments. White arrows indicate positive cells. Scale bar ?= ?50 ?µm.

Fig 3: Effective knockdown of ADAMTS5 in SW982 synovial fibroblasts cells transduced with ADAMTS5 targeting shRNA lentiviral particles.SW982 cells were untransduced (unt), or transduced with non-targeting shRNA (Ctl) or with two distinct ADAMTS5-targeting shRNA (denoted #3 or #5). Post-transduction the cells were treated in the presence or absence of IL-1ß (1ng/ml, 16h) to induce ADAMTS5 expression. Subsequently, a western blot of whole cell extracts from these cells were run and probed with anti-ADAMTS5 or anti-GAPDH antibodies as indicated. GAPDH abundance was used as a loading control reference. A representative blot is shown.

Fig 4: Co-culture of hMSCs transduced with ADAMTS5-targeting shRNA effectively reduces ADAMTS5 expression in flow cytometry sorted RFP-labeled SW982.(A) Following co-culture of non-targeting control shRNA or ADAMTS5-targeting shRNA transduced hMSCs with RFP labeled SW982 cells, the cells were sorted by flow cytometry. The gating threshold (RFP+ sorted) was set based on the analysis of co-cultured hMSCs with unlabeled SW982 cells (no SW982-RFP cells). RFP-positive SW982 cells that were co-cultured with hMSCs previously transduced with non-targeting control-shRNA or ADAMTS5-targeting shRNA were sorted directly into TriPure reagent for RNA isolation. (B) The histogram shows the relative gene expression for ADAMTS5 in the RFP-positive cell population isolated after co-culture with hMSC-shRNA-control or hMSC-shRNA-ADAMTS5 cells as determined by quantitative real time RT-PCR. The result is from a representative experiment.

Fig 5: The ADAMTS-5 expression in human atheromatous plaques. (a) Western blot analysis of ADAMTS-5 in atheromatous plaques from normal donors and patients with coronary heart disease (CAD) (n = 6/group). *P < 0.05 versus donors. (b) The ADAMTS-5 expression in these two groups were measured by immunohistochemistry staining (n = 6/group, scale bar, 1000 µm for the left set of panels and 100 µm for the right panels). (c) The source of ADAMTS-5 was detected by double immunofluorescence staining (n = 6/group, scale bar, 100 µm).