Like salamander and zebrafish, humans can regenerate tissues, a capacity that could be used to renew cartilage in joints affected by osteoarthritis , according to an article published Wednesday by Science Advances.

A scientific team from Duke University in North Carolina (USA) has identified a mechanism for cartilage repair that is stronger in the ankles than in other parts of the body such as the hips.

This finding could lead to treatments for osteoarthritis , common in older ages and leading to the loss of cartilage in the joints and bone deformation.

"We believe that an understanding of this regenerative capacity in humans similar to that of salamanders and the critical components that we lack in this regulatory circuit could provide the basis for new approaches to repair joint tissues and possibly complete human members "said one of the authors of the study, Virginia Byers Kraus .

Scientists have designed a method to determine the age of proteins using the internal "molecular clocks" of amino acids that are converted from one form to another with predictable regularity.

While newly created proteins have few or no amino acid conversions, the oldest ones have many.

Understanding this process has allowed researchers to use mass spectrometry - an analysis technique that determines the distribution of molecules in a substance - to identify when the key proteins in human cartilage, including collagen, were young, adult or old

Thus they have discovered that the age of a cartilage depends, to a large extent, on what part of the body it is located. The cartilage in the ankles is young, in the knees it is of medium age and in the hips it is old tissue.

This explains, in part, why injuries that people suffer in the hips and knees require more time to heal than those that occur in the ankles and often lead to osteoarthritis, while those in the ankle heal sooner and lead to osteoarthritis less frequently.

The relationship between the age of the human cartilage and its place in the body is similar to the way in which limb repair occurs in certain animals that regenerate the farthest ones such as the legs or tail faster.

The researchers found that this process is regulated by molecules called microRNA (ribonucleic acid) that are more active in animals known for their ability to repair limbs, fins or tails, such as salamanders, zebrafish, freshwater fish in Africa and some lizards .

"It was very exciting to discover that the regulators of regeneration in the limbs of the salamander seem to also be those that control tissue repair in human joints," said Ming-Feng Hsueh , the lead author of the article.

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