Dynamics of matrix loss in the spontaneous osteoarthritic mouse strain STR-1N

Animal models for osteoarthritis (OA) face the difficulty to display the key pathological events of a naturally slowly progressing disease in a protracted time frame. To serve as pharmacological models, in addition, these changes need to be meaningful and synchronous enough to allow predictions regarding the potential effects of new therapies. Therefore, high expectations have been placed in models where the OA-like pathology develops spontaneously, without any defined stimulus potentially limiting the true disease relevance of the tissue reactions thus induced.