Construction of a MMP sensitive array on glass for MMP-13 detection in vitro

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a type of degenerative joint disease characterized by the degradation of articular cartilage and subchondral bones, and associated inflammation, which finally leads to swelling, stiffness and pain in joints. As one of the most important biomarker of OA, the excessive expression of MMP-13 is responsible for the onset of OA at its early development by the degradation of the structure of ECM in the pathological cartilage. Many popular in vivo and in vitro detection and treatment methods are applied on the foundation of targeting to MMP-13. In our research, we designed a simple and effective strategy of constructed a MMP sensitive array on glass with a MMP-13 cleavable peptide linked with fluorescein (FITC), which was expected to have the potential of detection and measurement of the activity level of active MMP-13 in vitro. Two alternative strategies were developed and a primary MMP sensitive array was finally constructed, and the strategy of developing the MMP sensitive array is possible to be applied for the construction of different sensitive arrays for detecting other biomarkers of OA in the future.