To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to evaluate the alternative complement system in women with endometriosis. The current findings may be noteworthy to elucidate the…

BACKGROUND Although osteoarthritis (OA) is the leading cause of pain and disability worldwide, there is a lack of models to probe the separable mechanism of OA structural damage and knee pain. We previously identified that deletion of complement factor D (FD) results in increased pressure-pain hyperalgesia despite cartilage protection after destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) surgery. However, how these discordant OA phenotypes manifest is not understood. We employed a novel targeted lipidomics approach to elucidate the role of eicosanoids in FD-mediated pain. We hypothesize that the absence of Cfd (FD-/-) will protect cartilage but cause increased pressure-pain hyperalgesia and eicosanoid dysregulation that persists throughout OA development. METHODS Male and female FD-/- and wild-type (WT) mice were challenged with DMM or remained naive (n=5-11/group) at 16 weeks old. Pressure-pain hyperalgesia was measured bi-weekly for 8 weeks post-DMM. A second cohort was evaluated at 2 weeks post-DMM (n=6-10/group) to investigate DMM injury response. Structural damage was scored using the Modified Mankin system. To determine changes in eicosanoid profiles, serum and synovial fluid samples were analyzed via liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Statistical analysis was performed with unpaired t-test, two-way, or three-way ANOVA with Sidaks posthoc test. Statistical significance is defined as p