Bone Abstracts

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) causes progressive muscle weakness and loss of ambulation. While glucocorticoid (GC) therapy improves motor function, many boys sustain fractures due to osteoporosis. Recently, i.v. bisphosphonate (i.v.BP) therapy has shown promise in the treatment of DMD-related osteoporosis. At the same time, bone histomorphometry revealed lowered bone volume and significant reductions in bone formation pre-i.v.BP treatment, and a further drop after 2 years&...

Introduction: Acromegaly is a rare disease caused by excess growth hormone (GH) production by an adenoma of the anterior pituitary gland. The skeletal complications of GH and IGF-1 excess include increased bone turnover, increased cortical bone mass and deteriorated microarchitecture of trabecular bone, associated with a high risk of vertebral fractures in the presence of a relatively normal Bone Mineral Density (BMD). There are no data on bone material properties in patients ...

Skeletogenesis is an intricate process controlled by numerous transcriptional factors, hormones and signalling pathways. Recently, microRNAs emerged as important players in skeletogenesis but, only few were identified and most of their targets remain unknown. Previous works showed that miR-199a-2/214 cluster is essential for skeletal development and that miR-214 inhibits bone formation in mammals. However, data regarding its skeletal role in other vertebrates is scarce and its...

Background: Severe vitamin D deficiency (VDD), is a common disorder, which has complications including rickets, hypocalcaemia, hypotonia, delayed development and cardiomyopathy. Although nutritional rickets associated craniosynostosis has been reported, there is little awareness of this or knowledge about its clinical course or severity. We present five cases of late onset craniosynostosis in association with nutritional rickets.Clinical presentation: Th...

Background: Mutations in SATB2 have been described in association with a unique phenotype known as SATB2-associated syndrome (SAS). This condition is characterised by severe intellectual disability affecting speech development, behaviour, facial features and dental anomalies. Skeletal features and osteoporosis have been reported in older individuals (aged 15–36), in association with point mutations. We report a 24-year-old man with a SATB2 misse...

Osteoporosis is a common skeletal disorder characterized by low bone mass leading to increased bone fragility and fracture susceptibility. Little is currently known about what specific factors stimulate osteoblast differentiation from human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). Therefore, the aim for this project is to determine novel factors and mechanisms involved in human bone production which can be targeted to treat osteoporosis, using gene expression profiling and bioinformati...

Osteoporosis is a common skeletal disorder characterized by low bone mass leading to increased bone fragility and fracture susceptibility. Little is currently known about what specific factors stimulate osteoblast differentiation from human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). Therefore, the aim for this project is to determine novel factors and mechanisms involved in human bone production which can be targeted to treat osteoporosis, using gene expression profiling and bioinformati...

Introduction: We recently showed that patients with primary Sjögren Syndrome (pSS) have significantly higher bone mineral density (BMD) in the lumbar spine and femoral neck compared with healthy controls. The majority of those patients (69%) were using hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), which may have favourable effects on BMD.Aim: To evaluate whether HCQ modulates human bone cells in vitro.Methods: Osteoblasts were differenti...

The cathepsin K inhibitor odanacatib (ODN) is a bone formation-sparing inhibitor of osteoclastic resorption activity. This drug is currently under development for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis. To support the bone safety profile of ODN, we evaluated the effects of ODN on trabecular bone hard tissue properties in the estrogen-deficient model of the ovariectomized (OVX) rhesus monkeys. Animals (n=16/group, age 11–22 years) were treated immediately af...

This study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of whole-body vibration (WBV) with extremely low-amplitude on early-stage bone healing. Experiments were conducted with an approval of the Animal Research Committee of Osaka University Graduate School of Engineering Science. Male BALB/cByJJcl mice were subjected to a 0.5 mm drill-hole surgery on a tibial diaphysis at 14 weeks of age and divided into three groups (n=8 each) from the day after the surgery, which received ...