Plain answers to what people ask about MMP13, cartilage and collagen. Each one opens with the short answer, then the detail, with every fact cited to a paper on PubMed.
MMP13, short for matrix metalloproteinase-13 and also called collagenase-3, is an enzyme that cuts collagen. Cartilage cells make it, and of the collagen-cutting enzymes...
MMP13 cuts type II collagen, the rope-like fibre that gives cartilage its strength. It cleaves each three-stranded collagen molecule at one spot, leaving a three-quarter...
Both are collagenases, enzymes that can cut intact collagen, and they cut type II collagen at the same bond. MMP13 is much faster at it: at least ten times faster than...
They attack different parts of cartilage. MMP13 is the main enzyme that cuts type II collagen, the fibre network. ADAMTS5 is the main aggrecanase, cutting aggrecan, the...
Because it acts at the irreversible step. MMP13 is the main enzyme cutting type II collagen in damaged cartilage, and that collagen barely renews. Mice without MMP13 had...
In two main ways. Cells release MMP13 as an inactive proenzyme that must be cut before it works, and the body makes its own inhibitors, the TIMPs. TIMP-1, TIMP-2 and...
Yes. Besides type II collagen, MMP13 cuts aggrecan, the water-holding molecule in cartilage, at two sites, one of them not seen with other enzymes. Purified MMP13 also...
Type II collagen is the main collagen in joint cartilage. Collagen makes up about two-thirds of adult cartilage's dry mass, and type II is its principal molecule, woven...
Its collagen barely does. Radiocarbon dating of knee cartilage from 23 people found virtually no replacement of the collagen network after the skeleton finished growing...
It depends which part is damaged. Researchers describe losing aggrecan, the water-holding molecule in cartilage, as an early and reversible step, and losing type II...
For cartilage, wear and tear is an incomplete picture. Cartilage is broken down by enzymes its own cells make, chiefly MMP13 for the collagen. Healthy cartilage from...
Not on its own. In healthy ankle cartilage from 30 donors aged 16 to 75, all four collagen-cutting enzymes were present but did not change with age. What age changed was...
In human cartilage cells, MMP13 rose in response to inflammatory messengers such as IL-1, oxidative stress, calcium phosphate crystals, a disrupted cell body clock...
Yes, in lab studies. The inflammatory messenger IL-1 raised MMP13 in human cartilage and cartilage cells in several studies, and TNF-alpha did too. To switch the MMP13...
In the lab, it can. University of Auckland researchers found that raising glucose from 4 to 10 mM, within the range from normal to high blood sugar, made cells from...
In lab and animal studies, yes. Curcumin lowered MMP13 in rat cartilage cells exposed to IL-1 beta, and a curcumin metabolite bound and blocked MMP13 directly and...
In animal and lab studies, yes. AKBA, the lead boswellic acid, suppressed MMP13 in rats with chemically induced knee damage, and a frankincense extract lowered MMP13...
The lab evidence is thin and mixed. Glucosamine lowered MMP13 in one study of human cartilage cells and stem cells, but in another it didn't change cytokine-driven...