Increase in and Expression in Synovium of Hip Osteoarthritis Patients Who Are Overweight.

While research suggests that increasing body mass index (BMI) is a risk factor for hip osteoarthritis (HOA), the mechanisms of this effect are not fully understood. Tryptases are among the main proteases found in mast cells (MCs) and contribute to OA pathology. , which encodes β-tryptase, is increased in the synovium of overweight and obese knee OA patients. However, it remains unclear whether tryptase in the synovium of HOA is increased with increasing BMI. Here, we investigated tryptase genes ( and ) in the synovium of overweight HOA patients. Forty-six patients radiographically diagnosed with HOA were allocated to two groups based on BMI, namely normal (<25 kg/m) and overweight (25-29.99 kg/m). and expression in the synovium of the two groups was compared using real-time polymerase chain reaction. To compare and expression in MCs between the groups, we isolated the MC-rich fraction (MC-RF) and MC-poor fraction (MC-PF), extracted using magnetic isolation. and expression was increased in the overweight group compared with the normal group. Expression of both genes in the MC-RF was significantly higher than that in MC-PF in both groups. However, and expression levels in the MC-RF did not differ between the groups. Tryptase genes were highly expressed in the synovium of overweight HOA patients. Further investigation to reveal the role of tryptase in the relationship between increasing BMI and HOA pathology is required.