Glycolysis: an emerging regulator of osteoarthritis

Front Immunol. 2024 Jan 9:14:1327852. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1327852. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) has been a leading cause of disability in the elderly and there remains a lack of effective therapeutic approaches as the mechanisms of pathogenesis and progression have yet to be elucidated. As OA progresses, cellular metabolic profiles and energy production are altered, and emerging metabolic reprogramming highlights the importance of specific metabolic pathways in disease progression. As a crucial part of glucose metabolism, glycolysis bridges metabolic and inflammatory dysfunctions. Moreover, the glycolytic pathway is involved in different areas of metabolism and inflammation, and is associated with a variety of transcription factors. To date, it has not been fully elucidated whether the changes in the glycolytic pathway and its associated key enzymes are associated with the onset or progression of OA. This review summarizes the important role of glycolysis in mediating cellular metabolic reprogramming in OA and its role in inducing tissue inflammation and injury, with the aim of providing further insights into its pathological functions and proposing new targets for the treatment of OA.

Keywords: glycolysis; immunometabolic reprogramming; inflammation; metabolism; osteoarthritis.

Publication types

  • Review
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Cellular Reprogramming
  • Glycolysis*
  • Humans
  • Inflammation
  • Metabolic Reprogramming
  • Osteoarthritis*

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The current work was financially supported by the Opening Project of Key Laboratory of Integrative Chinese and Western Medicine for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Circulatory Diseases of Zhejiang Province (2C32004,2C32101) and “the Postgraduate Scientific Research Fund” of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University (2020YKJ15,2022YKJ23).