ArticlebioRxiv : the preprint server for biology2026
Spatial Transcriptomics Identifies Muscle Inflammation Susceptibility as a Distinct Periarticular Skeletal Muscle Phenotype in End-Stage Knee Osteoarthritis.
Article in bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Skeletal muscle dysfunction is a major contributor to disability and incomplete functional recovery in patients with end-stage knee osteoarthritis (KOA), yet the spatial components of disease-associated molecular remodeling remain poorly understood. Here, we applied spatial transcriptomics to paired skeletal muscle biopsies obtained from the surgical (Sx) and contralateral (Ct) limbs of individuals undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA) to define the cellular architecture of periarticular muscle and determine how muscle inflammation susceptibility (MuIS) shapes local transcriptional programs. Integrated analysis of 27,087 spots obtained from 22 muscle histological cross-sections (11 Sx-Ct pairs) revealed seven spatially resolved transcriptional domains corresponding to slow and fast myofiber states, an extracellular matrix/fibroadipogenic-enriched domain, a pericyte/smooth muscle domain, and a satellite cell/myogenic-enriched domain. Despite advanced unilateral disease, the major annotated cellular compartments were similarly represented between Sx and Ct limbs. KOA-associated remodeling was reflected primarily by within-cluster transcriptional changes, with the most informative differences observed in fibroadipogenic, pericyte/smooth muscle, and satellite/myogenic domains. Within Sx, MuIS stratification identified a coordinated transcriptional program characterized by denervation- and regeneration-associated genes and altered contractile and metabolic features. Neighborhood analysis localized denervation-associated signals primarily to fast-myofiber-rich regions, while local adjacency patterns among the examined myofiber, fibroadipogenic, and pericyte/smooth muscle domains were broadly preserved. Our findings provide the first spatial transcriptomic analysis of periarticular skeletal muscle in end-stage KOA and identify MuIS as a distinct local transcriptional phenotype in diseased muscle.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.