In addition, to examine whether the decrease in Txnip expression under conditions of prolonged inflammatory disease exhibits a general trend, published data and the GEO database were utilized to determine the expression of Txnip in chondrocytes and synovial tissues from humans, rats and mice with osteoarthritis (Additional file 1: Fig. S4), which has a similar pathological and physiological process to IVDD [18]. This evidence concerns the gene TXNIP and osteoarthritis.