LAUSR

Clinical treatment of Osteoarthritis (OA) remains a challenge due to the poor self‐regeneration ability of cartilage. Deer antler is the only cartilage tissue that can completely regenerate each year. Insulin‐like growth factor 1 (IGF‐1) is one of the major active components in the deer antler that participate in regulating the rapid regeneration of deer antler cartilage. This has led us to speculate that deer IGF‐1 might potentially become a candidate drug for reducing damage and inflammation of OA. Thus, we aimed to explore the underlying mechanism of deer IGF‐1 in chondrocyte proliferation, differentiation, and inflammation response. Deer, mouse, and human IGF‐1 amino acid sequences and protein structures were aligned using CLUSTAL and PSIPRED. The underlying molecular mechanism of deer IGF‐1 on primary chondrocytes was investigated by RNA‐sequencing (RNA‐seq) technology combined with various experiments. Cytokine interleukin‐1β (IL‐1β) was used to induce the inflammation response of primary chondrocytes. We found that deer IGF‐1 was more similar to human IGF‐1 than mouse IGF‐1. qRT‐PCR and immunofluorescence assay indicated that deer IGF‐1 had stronger effects than mouse IGF‐1. We also found that the deer IGF‐1 enhanced the expression of cell proliferation, differentiation, and extracellular matrix (ECM)‐related genes, but decreased the expression of ECM‐degrading genes. Deer IGF‐1 also attenuated the IL‐1β‐induced inflammatory and ECM degradation in chondrocytes. This study provides insight into the molecular mechanisms of deer IGF‐1 on primary chondrocyte viability and presents a candidate for combatting inflammatory responses in OA development.