Exercise on microRNA in Osteoarthritis

All patients were informed about knee OA, joint protection principles, and the exercise effects on knee OA before treatment. The exercises were supervised by a physiotherapist for 30 minutes twice a week and once a week as a home program. The exercise program consisted of a warm-up, strengthening knee extensors and lower extremity stretching exercises. Firstly, quadriceps isometric and adductor isometric (roll tightening) exercises, hamstring stretching, quadriceps stretching, and gastrocnemius stretching were applied. Then, hip flexion-extension-abduction-adduction, and knee extension while sitting were applied with exercise bands. Strengthening exercises were composed of three sets with 10 repetitions. Stretching exercises were performed 10 repetitions for 10 seconds.

The total RNA was isolated from peripheral blood samples taken from patients and the control group by applying the protocol of the manufacturer (LucigenMasterPure™ Complete DNA and RNA Purification Kit, USA). The total RNA was isolated in three steps: Lysis stage of the whole blood samples, precipitation of nucleic acids and precipitation of total RNA. The purity and concentration of the isolated total RNA samples were measured with the spectrophotometer (Thermo Fischer) device. The samples were stored at -80°C until the next step. To determine the microRNA expression levels; firstly, conjugate DNA (cDNA) was synthesized from total RNA samples according to the manufacturer's protocol. Whether the desired region reproduced in the reaction and whether there were primer dimers were checked by adding a melting curve step. In addition, blood samples of 30 age-sex matched healthy volunteers were compared.