New strategy discovered for treating arthritis

Arthritis patients could one day benefit from a novel form of medicine, according to researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Their early study indicates that arthritic cartilage, previously thought to be impenetrable to therapies, could be treated by a patient's own 'microvesicles' that are able to travel into cartilage cells and deliver therapeutic agents. Microvesicles are very small subcellular structures (0.05 to 1 micrometer in diameter) that consist of fluid enclosed by a membrane. They are released by cells in copious numbers to transfer lipids and proteins to target cells, yet their role in disease has been poorly understood. Some white blood cells' microvesicles tend to accumulate in large numbers in the joints of rheumatoid arthritis patients. The biological impact of these microvesicles has been intriguing to researchers, because they are known to contain over 300 types of protein that vary in different situations. Lead author Professor Mauro Perretti from QMUL's William Harvey Research Institute said: "Cartilage has long been thought to be impenetrable to cells and other small structures, leading to strong limitations in our abilities to deliver therapies for arthritis.