Bone Abstracts

Purpose: Research suggests that dancers are at higher risk of developing low bone mineral density (BMD) compared with the general population. However, the associated factors contributing to low BMD in dancers are not fully understood. We aimed to assess the association of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the Wnt/β-catenin and oestrogen receptor (ER) signalling pathways with low BMD in dancers.Methods: A genetic association study was conduct...

Background: Final stature is a result of concomitant growth hormone (GH)-IGF1 axis integrity, a healthy environment and genetic background. Occasionally, growth occurs despite remarkable impairment in hormone profile. Presenting problem: An uncommon case of longitudinal growth in a boy with very low IGF1 concentrations and clinical diagnosis of osteopetrosis. Clinical management: We report on the case of a 19 year-old male patient with the diagnosis of osteopetrosis who had a ...

Non-healing fractures caused by trauma, disease or tumour resection demand the use of bone grafts to support and stimulate the healing process. We sought to develop and evaluate the effect of a novel bioactive biodegradable biomaterial designed to fill large bone lesions and to improve bone healing. We used two-photon polymerised synthetic polymer scaffolds composed of lactide (LA), caprolactone (CL), and methacrylate (MA) with varying LA: CL ratio and percentage of methacryla...

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...

There is a growing body of evidence indicating the important role of the neonatal steroid milieu in programming sexually dimorphic pattern in various physiological systems. We tested the hypothesis that abnormal exposure to steroid hormones within a critical developmental period elicits permanent changes on tooth eruption, enamel mineralization, and leptin and corticosterone concentrations in adulthood. Newborn Wistar rats were divided into four groups, two male groups and two...

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...

Background: Zoledronate, a third generation bisphosphonate, has showed high efficacy in the inhibition of bone resorption. The objective of this observational study was to assess short and long-term efficacy and safety of zoledronate in the treatment of active Paget’s disease (PD).Methods: Patients with active PD treated with zoledronate 5 mg were consecutively recruited. Clinical and laboratory parameters were determined before, at 3 and every 6 mo...

The regions of the proximal femur that are at greater risk of structural failure during a fall are those with less adaptive protection promoted by mechanical loading of the activities of daily living. Considering the associations between bone geometry of the proximal femur with bone fracture risk, we intended to examine how geometrical characteristics of the proximal femur (FNL, femoral neck length; FNW, femoral neck width; NSA, neck shaft angle) moderate the effect of mechani...

Epigenetic mechanisms regulate gene expression and are heritable through cell divisions even though they do not involve modifications in the gene sequence. They include methylation and other chemical modifications of cytosine nucleotides, histone posttranslational modifications, microRNAs and other non-coding RNAs. Most cytosines in the human genome are methylated, particularly in the inactive, tightly packed, heterochromatin of autosomes, and the inactivated X-chromosome in f...

Increased understanding of the biochemical pathways leading to MV-mediated initiation of skeletal, dental and vascular calcification has been attained through the extensive use of single and double knockout mouse models as well as via overexpression of genes by transgenesis. Our current integrated model of these pathways is compatible with the following sequence of events: MVs initiate mineral deposition by accumulation of Pi generated intravesicularly by the action...