Bone Abstracts

Osteoporosis (OP) is characterised by reduced bone mass, due to an insufficient osteoblast-mediated bone formation, unable to replace the bone tissue removed by osteoclasts. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells capable of differentiating into osteoblasts, adipocytes and chondrocytes. Epigenetic marks like DNA methylation could influence the differentiation potential of these cells into osteoblasts and, consequently, the risk of OP. To explore this hypothesis, we...

Introduction: Parathyroid hormone (PTH) measurement is of use in i) differential diagnosis of hypercalcaemia and ii) patients with renal impairment at risk of bone disease. PTH immunoassays are complicated by cross-reactivity with truncated (inactive) variant forms, which accumulate in patients with renal impairment. PTH assay variability is a critical governance issue in renal medicine, suggesting an MS-based reference method is required.Aim: To develop...

Sclerostin, encoded by the SOST gene, functions as an inhibitor of the Wnt pathway and thus it is an important regulator of bone homeostasis. The fact that osteoblasts, the only cells expressing SOST, lay buried deeply in the bone matrix, poses intrinsic difficulties to the study of the regulation of this gene. Since RUNX2 and SP7/OSX are two known regulators of the differentiation of cells of the osteoblastic lineage, the aim of this study was to determine t...