Bone Abstracts

see PP279....

Hip and forearm fractures are the two clinically most important non-vertebral fractures. Twin studies have demonstrated a high heritability of these fractures and the heritable component of fracture risk is largely independent of BMD.To identify common genetic variants associated with hip and forearm fractures, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS ~ 2.5 million SNPs) meta-analysis of two large fracture data sets within the well-characterize...

Background: Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) and osteoporosis (OP) are common and parallel ageing and frequently coexist in an ageing population. Low BMD appears related to increased risk of AD. Various clinical conditions have been shown to alter acetylcholine (Ach) signalling and affect bone. Ach receptor (AchR) subunits and Ach esterase (AchE) are expressed in bone. Presynaptic Botox inhibit Ach release and impair bone healing and decrease bone mineral content. Poliomyelitis ...

Formation and growth of long bones occur through the process of endochondral ossification, which depends on proliferation and hypertrophy of chondrocytes in growth cartilage. In a subtractive hybridization study of equine cartilage, we recently identified a number of genes, the roles of which in growth cartilage have not been characterized. A subset of these genes was found to be differentially expressed between the zones of equine growth cartilage. The genes encoding ATPase H...

The selective cathepsin K inhibitor odanacatib (ODN) is currently in development for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis. Our goal was to evaluate the effects of ODN vs alendronate (ALN) on bone mass and strength of lumbar vertebrae (LV) in orchiectomized (ORX) rabbits, a model of male osteoporosis. Adult male rabbits (11 months old) were subjected to sham- (n=20) or ORX-surgery (n=24/group) for 7.5 months before dosing initiated. ORX animals were ra...

In a recent unbiased transcriptomic study of genes associated with equine osteochondrosis, we identified several novel cartilage genes. The current study was undertaken to determine whether these genes are regulated during chondrocyte hypertrophy, and to identify novel hypertrophy-associated genes for further study in vitro. Gene expression was investigated by quantitative PCR (qPCR) in different zones of growth cartilage microdissected from equine foetal metatarsal b...

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The G protein-coupled receptor, protease-activated receptor 2 (PAR2), is expressed by osteoblasts and required for normal skeletal growth and repair. Prostate cancer (PCa) cells commonly secrete proteolytic activators of PAR2 (including matriptase and kallikrein-related peptidase 4) and frequently form osteogenic metastases in bone. This study was undertaken to investigate the hypothesis that PAR2 activators released by PCa cells modulate osteo...

Background: Osteoporosis is not a homogenous disease. Riggs et al. identified two distinct types of osteoporosis, with different pathophysiology, patterns of bone loss and fracture types.Post-menopausal (PM) osteoporosis is triggered by withdrawal of the effect of oestrogen on bone, which leads to a sharp acceleration of bone turnover with an imbalance towards excessive osteoclastic activity. Senile osteoporosis in the old old (usually after the...

Objectives: Most osteolytic tumors are in fact mixed and contain an osteoblastic component associated with the predominant osteolytic areas. This metaplastic woven bone can be evidenced on X-rays as blurred white areas but is always evidenced by histological analysis even in the absence of radiological expression. Metaplastic bone formation reflects the activation of new osteoblasts, the stimulation of the dormant lining cells due to the release of growth factors buried in the...