Glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (GIOP) is a clinically important disease. Despite many studies, the intrinsic pathogenesis of GIOP is still not fully understood. Cartilage is the target tissue of the glucocorticoid prednisolone (PN). To explore the intrinsic mechanism of PN-induced cartilage damage, we performed cartilage staining and cell transfection experiments in zebrafish larvae treated with PN. The results showed that PN caused cartilage damage in zebrafish at 25 μM. Moreover, after treatment with PN, it was found that collagen-encoding gene expression was significantly reduced. Further research revealed that the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) mediates the transcriptional inhibition of collagen genes by PN. These results indicate that glucocorticoids cause cartilage damage by inhibiting the expression of collagen genes through their receptors. Our study provides new insights into GIOP.

糖皮质激素诱发的骨质疏松症 (GIOP) 是一种临床上重要的疾病。尽管进行了许多研究，但 GIOP 的内在发病机制仍未完全了解。软骨是糖皮质激素泼尼松龙 (PN) 的靶组织。为了探索 PN 诱导的软骨损伤的内在机制，我们在用 PN 处理的斑马鱼幼虫中进行了软骨染色和细胞转染实验。结果表明，25 μM 的 PN 会导致斑马鱼的软骨损伤。此外，经PN处理后，发现胶原蛋白编码基因表达显着降低。进一步的研究表明，糖皮质激素受体 (GR) 介导了 PN 对胶原基因的转录抑制。这些结果表明，糖皮质激素通过其受体抑制胶原基因的表达而引起软骨损伤。我们的研究为 GIOP 提供了新的见解。