A comparative study on the lipidome of normal knee synovial fluid from humans and horses

The current limitations in evaluating synovial fluid (SF) components in health and disease and between species are due in part to the lack of data on normal SF, because of low availability of SF from healthy articular joints. Our study aimed to quantify species-dependent differences in phospholipid (PL) profiles of normal knee SF obtained from equine and human donors. Knee SF was obtained during autopsy by arthrocentesis from 15 and 13 joint-healthy human and equine donors, respectively. PL species extracted from SF were quantitated by mass spectrometry whereas ELISA determined apolipoprotein (Apo) B-100. Wilcoxon’s rank sum test with adjustment of scores for tied values was applied followed by Holm´s method to account for multiple testing. Six lipid classes with 89 PL species were quantified, namely phosphatidylcholine, lysophosphatidylcholine, sphingomyelin, phosphatidylethanolamine, plasmalogen, and ceramide. Importantly, equine SF contains about half of the PL content determined in human SF with some characteristic changes in PL composition. Nutritional habits, decreased apolipoprotein levels and altered enzymatic activities may have caused the observed different PL profiles. Our study provides comprehensive quantitative data on PL species levels in normal human and equine knee SF so that research in joint diseases and articular lubrication can be facilitated.