We have reported that a single intra-articular injection of diclofenac etalhyaluronate (SI-613) exerted a potent and long-lasting analgesic effect in experimental arthritis models. In the present study, we investigated the effect of SI-613 on the production of high molecular weight hyaluronic acid (HMW-HA) in synoviocytes from osteoarthritis (OA) patients and compared its efficacy with that of hyaluronic acid (HA).
We compared the effect of SI-613, HA, and diclofenac sodium (DF-Na) on high molecular weight HA production by human synoviocytes.
SI-613 and exogenous HA induced the production of high molecular weight HA in synoviocytes from OA patients, whereas DF-Na had no effect. The molecular weight of newly produced HA was about 1000 kDa in the HA-treated synoviocytes and much higher than 2400 kDa in the SI-613-treated cells. The effect of the mixture of HA and DF-Na was similar to that of HA alone in that the molecular weight of newly produced HA was around 1000 kDa. SI-613 significantly suppressed hyaluronidase 2 (HYAL2) mRNA expression and significantly enhanced hyaluronan synthase 2 (HAS2) mRNA expression. HA had no effect on the expression levels of HYAL and HAS.
The present results clearly demonstrate that SI-613 induces the production of high molecular weight HA in synoviocytes from OA patients, suggesting the long-lasting analgesic and disease modifying effect of SI-613 for OA. Taken together with the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects we recently reported for the intra-articular administration of SI-613 to experimental animal models, SI-613 holds great promise for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis.