Oxidation and cell damage: DNA damageIn general, cellular aging is associated with a number of changes in gene expression that undermine the ability of cells to maintain tissue homeostasis. Hence, aging cells accumulate molecules that have been damaged by oxidation, which is thought to detrimentally affect cells such that they no longer function properly. In particular, genomic DNA is chemically very susceptible to structural modification by oxidative damage, and lacks the level of redundancy of other cellular molecules. Whereas actively dividing cells can resynthesize and replace mutated molecules, postmitotic cells (i.e. differentiated chondrocytes) with low biosynthetic activity cannot, and therefore accumulate oxidatively damaged molecules over time. Specifically, DNA damage can cause significant changes in the transcription pattern of genes required for normal cell function and viability. Given the high levels of DNA damage detectable in osteoarthritic chondrocytes (Figure 4E), this process could explain the uncoordinated, unstructured gene expression pattern observed in these cells (Figures 3 and 4D). Thus, the exposure of the articular chondrocytes to increased oxidative stress in OA may induce chondrocyte senescence and/or degeneration over time.