Markers of cartilage and bone matrix metabolism differ between the sera of macaque and squirrel monkeys

Background Nonhuman primates develop the characteristic lesions of osteoarthritis, making them attractive biomedical models for the study of environmental factors, such as diet, which may influence the progress of the condition. Methods and materials We used ELISA assays of potential markers of osteoarthritis which were developed for use in humans to see if we could determined the presence of immunoreactivity in two nonhuman primate genera-Macaca (macaque monkeys) and Saimiri (squirrel monkeys). Results Inter-generic differences were significant for most markers. Three markers (bone alkaline phosphatase, hyaluronin and YKL-40) were outside the human range and two markers (laminin and C2C) did not yield useful results because they were off-scale high. Conclusion Our results indicate that most of the ELISA assays designed for use with human serum can be used in nonhuman primates. The highly significant differences we observed between the sera of Macaca and Saimiri, suggest that further examination is warranted.