“Our hope is that this discovery will one day allow doctors to catch the disease earlier and intervene before significant joint damage occurs,” said Shabana Amanda Ali, Ph.D., a Henry Ford Health assistant scientist and senior author of the paper. “Osteoarthritis is so complex and so heterogeneous that even with decades of research there hasn’t been a single therapeutic.”

The scientists identified a circulating microRNA called miR-126-3p, a mechanistic biomarker of osteoarthritis of the knee.

MiR-126-3p plays a role in reducing blood vessel formation and reducing the severity of knee osteoarthritis, making it not just a signal of disease—but potentially a contributor to it.