Bone Abstracts

Background: In pediatric osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), bisphosphonates (BPs) are considered the best treatment option to increase bone density and reduce fracture rate. Pamidronate (PAM) is regarded as standard care for moderate to severe OI. The most recent added BP is intravenous zoledronate (ZOL). ZOL has practical advances over PAM, however research on its efficacy and safety is scarce.Objectives: To investigate the efficacy and safety of treatment w...

The maintenance and adaptation of bone morphology results from orchestrated remodeling processes. These processes are locally coordinated by osteocytes with biochemical signals that result in increased or decreased bone formation or resorption activities. To better understand the morphology, we therefore have to understand how osteocytes determine dynamic morphometric parameters within their local microenvironment. Recently, a local in vivo environment (LivE)...

Sclerostin, a Wnt signaling antagonist encoded by the SOST gene, negatively regulates osteoblasts and inhibits bone formation. Mechanical loading, which induces bone formation, leads to a decrease in sclerostin levels. Recently, neutralizing antibodies against sclerostin were tested successfully for the treatment of osteoporosis in rodents. However, sclerostin is not the only signal involved in mechanotransduction. Therefore we investigated whether treatment with sclerostin an...

Peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) is receiving considerable attention in the diagnosis and monitoring of human bone diseases. It is well accepted that lower image resolution compared to micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) affects bone morphometry. With advances in micro-CT evaluation techniques such as sample-specific remodeling simulations or dynamic bone morphometry, there is the potential to also allow the application of such techniques to clinical pQCT sc...

Silk fibroin (SF) sponges are a promising scaffold material for tissue engineering due to their biocompatibility, mechanical properties, and ability to support calcium-phosphate formation in vitro. However, previous studies have shown that SF can mineralize spontaneously in the presence of culture media, which has a detrimental effect on experimental integrity when analyzing how cells deposit bone-like tissue in tissue engineering studies. In this study we analyzed th...

It is hypothesized that osteocytes regulate bone adaptation by sensing mechanical strains in their microenvironments and signaling net bone formation or resorption. Owing to bone’s anisotropic architecture, individual osteocytes within a bone experience varying strains under mechanical loading. Thus, to accurately determine the relationships between mechanical strain, osteocyte behavior, and bone remodeling, it is crucial to use a single-cell approach. Using an in viv...

Bone is continuously remodeled to remove damage, to adapt to changes in mechanical demands and to regulate calcium homeostasis. The first aim is accomplished by coupled bone formation and resorption whereas adaptation requires sites of formation to differ from those of resorption. The regulation of circulating ions is achieved by a stochastic exchange of bone packets. Here, we investigated these different aspects of remodeling in healthy and ovariectomized (OVX) mice treated w...

Objectives: CKD in children is associated with suppressed body growth. Physical activity has been previously shown to increase expression of IGF1 signaling in muscles of rats with CKD, but the effects of this intervention on bone tissue have not been investigated yet. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of aerobic exercise on CKD related bone disease.Methods: Twenty-day old/50 g male rats underwent a two step subtotal nephrectomy (Nx) or...

Caspases are the basic enzymatic components in the apoptotic process. Recently, these molecules seem to participate not only in apoptotic but also in other cellular events, particularly in differentiation. This work aimed to further investigate novel roles of executive caspases such as caspase-7. The investigation is based on our previously published findings showing non-apoptotic roles of caspase-7 in odontogenesis.In this study, we followed the localiz...

Introduction: Children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) who suffer from growth retardation have usually normal circulating GH but low IGF1, suggesting GH resistance. We have previously shown in growth retarded CKD rats an increase in suppressor of cytokine signaling 2 (SOCS2) levels, a key negative regulator of GH signaling. SOCS2 spontaneously mutated (HG) mice show an exaggerated body growth and increased bone mass. We investigated growth and GH receptor (GHR) signaling in ...