Exercise accelerated the degeneration of lumbar IVDs from surgical lumbar instability, similar to the clinical degeneration process

Given the leading cause of disability worldwide, low back pain (LBP) is recognized as a pivotal socio-economic challenge to the aging population, which is importantly attributed to intervertebral disc degeneration (IVDD), a highly prevalent affliction of aging. Elastic nucleus pulposus (NP) tissue is essential for maintenance of IVD structural and functional integrity. Native NP cells exhibit crucial functions for regulating extracellular matrix homeostasis, constructing an accommodating biomechanical environment and maintaining the gelatinous property of NP tissue. Mechanical stresses, including compulsion position and aberrant mechanical loading, are regarded as etiological factors of IVDD, and to further investigate the effect of mechanical exercise during the degeneration of IVDs, we surgically resected the lumbar 4th-lumbar 5th (L4-L5) spinous processes of the rat spine along with the supraspinous and interspinous ligaments to induce lumbar surgical instability (LSI). Additionally, we applied RNA sequencing technology to describe the degeneration-associated molecular atlas of the LSI model during exercise, and found that exercise accelerated the degenerative process of IVDs from LSI, which is involved in cytosolic DNA sensing-mediated inflammatory activation, similar to the degenerative patterns of the clinical IVDD process.