BioCentury
ARTICLE | Distillery Therapeutics

IKKβ inhibition for tendinopathy

March 13, 2019 1:06 PM UTC

INDICATION: Musculoskeletal

Patient sample, cell culture and mouse studies suggest inhibiting IKKβ could help treat tendinopathy. In tendon tissues samples from patients with rotator cuff disease, levels of IKKβ protein were higher than in samples from healthy volunteers. In a human tendon fibroblast-based model of tendinopathy, a tool compound IKKβ inhibitor decreased levels of the inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1; CCL2) compared with no treatment. In mouse models of overuse tendinopathy and supraspinatus tendon injury and repair, tendon-specific knockout of IKKβ decreased biomechanical degeneration compared with normal IKKβ expression. Ongoing work includes testing IKKβ inhibition in a rat model of rotator cuff tendinopathy and repair...