Mohit Kapoor
PhD
Dr. Kapoor is the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in the mechanisms of joint degeneration and Tony and Shari Fell Chair in Arthritis Research. He is the Co-Director of the Schroeder Arthritis Institute, University Health Network.
He is also a Full Professor in the Department of Surgery and the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Kapoor is the Director of the Collaborative Specialization in Musculoskeletal Sciences.
Research Synopsis
Dr. Kapoor's research program is directed towards understanding the complex pathophysiology of osteoarthritis (OA) and identifying new therapeutic strategies to counteract the destruction of the articular cartilage during OA. His expertise is in the field of osteoarthritis, cartilage degeneration, fibrosis, biomarkers, autophagy, microRNAs, genetically modified mice, molecular/cellular biology, animal models of disease and OA Tissue Biobank with varying degree of OA disease severity.
His translational research program is directed towards:
- Understanding the complex cellular and molecular mechanisms associated with joint destruction during osteoarthritis
- Identifying reliable biomarkers for early identification of patients with osteoarthritis to enable early intervention using large-scale OA biobank (over 82,000 banked specimens)
- Identifying novel therapeutic targets to stop/delay osteoarthritis and restore joint function
Recent Publications
Mohit Kapoor. Mechanisms of Fibrosis. Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology. Science Direct
Anusha Ratneswaran, Jason Rockel and Mohit Kapoor. Integration of multi-omics strategy for osteoarthritis phenotyping. Current Opinion in Rheumatology. 2020 Jan;32(1):80-91. doi: 10.1097/BOR.0000000000000680. Pubmed
Nakamura A, Rampersaud YR, Nakamura S, Sharma A, Zeng F, Rossomacha E, Ali SA, Krawetz R, Haroon N, Perruccio AV, Mahomed NN, Gandhi R, Rockel JS, Kapoor M. microRNA-181a-5p antisense oligonucleotides attenuate osteoarthritis in facet and knee joints. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. 2018 Oct 4. pii: annrheumdis-2018-213629. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2018-213629. Pubmed | Highlighted in Nature Reviews Rheumatology
Endisha H, Rockel J, Jurisica I, Kapoor M. The complex landscape of microRNAs in articular cartilage: biology, pathology, and therapeutic targets. Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight. 2018 Sep 6;3(17). pii: 121630. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.121630. Pubmed
David Lagares, Parisa Ghassemi-Kakaroodi, Caroline Tremblay, Daniela M. Santos, Paula Grasberger, Neil Ahluwalia, Clemens K. Probst, Sydney B. Montesi, Barry S Shea, Katharine E. Black, Rachel Knipe, Meryem Blati, Murray Baron, Brian Wu, Hassan Fahmi, Rajiv Gandhi, Annie Pardo, Moisés Selman, Jiangping Wu, Jean-Pierre Pelletier, Johanne Martel-Pelletier, Andrew M. Tager and Mohit Kapoor. ADAM10-mediated ephrin-B2 shedding promotes myofibroblast activation and organ fibrosis. Nature Medicine. 2017. 23, 1405–1415. Pubmed
Lietman C*, Wu B*, Lechner S, Shinar A, Sehgal, M, Rossomacha, E, Sharma, A, Gandhi, R, Mohit Kapoor and Pampee Young.(2017). Inhibition of Wnt/β-Catenin signaling ameliorates osteoarthritis in a murine model of experimental OA. Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight; 2018 Feb 8;3(3). pii: 96308. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.96308. Pubmed
David Lagares, Alba Santos, Paula E. Grasberger, Fei Liu, Clemens K. Probst, Rod A. Rahimi Norihiko Sakai, Tobias Kuehl, Jeremy Ryan, Patrick Bhola, Joan Montero, Mohit Kapoor, Murray Baron, Xaralabos Varelas, Daniel J. Tschumperlin, Anthony Letai, and Andrew M. Tager. Targeted apoptosis of myofibroblasts with the BH3 Mimetic ABT-263 reverses established fibrosis. Science Translational Medicine. Published. 2017, December; 9:420. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aal3765 Pubmed
Poulami Datta, Yue Zhang, Alexa Parousis, Anirudh Sharma, Evgeny Rossomacha, Izabela Kacprzak, Brian Wu, Nizar N. Mahomed, Rajiv Gandhi, Jason S. Rockel and Kapoor Mohit. High-fat diet-induced acceleration of osteoarthritis is associated with sustained metabolite signature regulated by Leptin/Autotaxin pathway. Published. Nature Scientific Reports. 2017 August 15. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-07963-6. Pubmed
Rockel J and Kapoor M. Autophagy: Controlling cell fate in Rheumatic Diseases: Nature Review Rheumatology. 2016. Epub. doi:10.1038/nrrheum.2016.92. PubMed
A. Nakamura, Y. R. Rampersaud, A. Sharma, S.J. Lewis, B. Wu, P. Datta, K. Sundararajan, H. Endisha, E. Rossomacha, J. Rockel, I. Jurisica, and M. Kapoor. (2016). Identification of microRNA-181a-5p and microRNA-4454 as mediators of facet cartilage degeneration. Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight. 2016(1): 12. PubMed
Ying‐Hua Li, Ghazaleh Tavallaee, Tomas Tokar, Akihiro Nakamura, Kala Sundararajan, Amanda Weston, Anirudh Sharma, Nizar N. Mahomed, Rajiv Gandhi, Igor Jurisica and Kapoor M. Identification of synovial fluid microRNA signature in knee OA: Differentiating early‐and late‐stage knee osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage. 2016 April 30. pii: S1063‐ 4584(16)30057‐7 doi: 10.1016/j.joca.2016.04.019 PMID: 27143365. PubMed
Vasheghani F, Zhang Y, Yinghua Li, Meryem Blati, Hassan Fahmi, Bertrand Lussier, Peter Roughley, David Lagares, Daniel Lajeunesse, K. Wayne Marshall, Raja Rampersaud, Nizar N. Mahomed, Rajiv Gandhi, Jean-Pierre Pelletier, Johanne Martel-Pelletier and Kapoor M. PPARgamma deficiency results in severe accelerated Osteoarthritis associated with defective mTOR and autophagy signalling. Annals of The Rheumatic Diseases. 2015 Mar. 74(3):569-78. PMID: 25573665 PubMed
Yuen YH, Lagares D, Tager AM and Kapoor M. Fibrosis- A lethal component of rheumatic diseases. Nature Reviews Rheumatology: 2014 Jul;10(7):390- 402. doi: 10.1038/nrrheum.2014.53 PMID: 24752182. PubMed
Zhang Y, Vasheghani F, Li YH, Blati M, Simeone K, Fahmi H, Lussier B, Roughley P, Lagares D, Pelletier JP, Martel-Pelletier J, Kapoor M. Cartilage-specific deletion of mTOR upregulates autophagy and protects mice from Osteoarthritis. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. 2015 Jul;74(7):1432-40 doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-204599. PMID: 24651621. PubMed
Vasheghani F , Monemdjou R , Fahmi H , Zhang Y , Perez G , Blati M , St-Arnaud R , Pelletier JP , Beier F , Martel-Pelletier J , Kapoor M. (2013). Adult Cartilage-Specific Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma Knockout Mice Exhibit the Spontaneous Osteoarthritis Phenotype. The American Journal of Pathology. 182(4): 1099-1106. PubMed