Bone Abstracts

Objectives: Turner syndrome (TS) affects 1:2000 girls and is mainly characterised by short stature and ovarian failure. Increased fracture risk has been reported in historical cohorts of women with TS and it was linked to their decreased bone mineral density (BMD). Nowadays, girls with TS are treated with growth hormone and substituted with estrogens, of which role in optimal bone mass accretion has been confirmed. Whether increased fracture rate is still of concern in these p...

Glucocorticoids (GC) are effective drugs in the treatment of inflammatory diseases, including various forms of arthritis. However, their use is limited by negative effects on bone mass and strength, resulting in increased osteoporotic fractures. Conditional knockout mice demonstrated that the GR in osteoblasts is essential for GC-dependent bone loss. Recent studies show that GC profoundly inhibit Wnt signaling by stimulating the expression of Wnt antagonists such as dickkopf-1...

: Glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (GIO) is the most frequent secondary osteoporosis in patients undergoing steroid therapy.Recently we demonstrated that the inhibition of bone formation in GIO is occurring in part via the suppression of autocrine cytokines by the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) monomer in osteoblasts (Cell Metab 11, 517–531). Since emerging evidences indicate that microRNAs (miRNAs) play a critical role in the differentiat...

Loss of genomic maintenance contributes to aging, as exemplified by mutations in Ercc DNA repair proteins that lead to a plethora of progeroid syndromes of which some display accelerated bone loss. It is generally accepted that dietary restriction (DR) increases life span and improves organ function. We therefore assessed the impact of DR on life span and bone mass in WT and bona fide prematurely aging hypomorphic Ercc-deficient mice (Ercc1−/Δ).<...

Background: Turner syndrome (TS) is associated with decreased bone mineral density and altered bone geometry, which is assumed a risk factor leading to increased fracture rate. Although hypogonadism or SHOX gene haploinsufficiency are the probable causes, the exact mechanism remains unclarified. Particularly, the muscle function as an important determinant of bone strength has yet not been focused on in TS.Objective: We tested the hypothesis that there i...

New treatment agents against osteoporosis may not only lead to an improved trabecular structure, but can probably also strengthen the cortex. To assess this treatment effects by means of QCT, one has to deal with significant partial volume effects observing this very thin, but compact structure. A new method for cortical thickness estimation has been developed using an analytical deconvolution approach. After estimating the point-spread-function (PSF) of a scanner/kernel combi...

Owing to their anti-inflammatory effects, steroid therapy using glucocorticoids (GCs) is still part of the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), despite several severe side effects like glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (GIO). Until now the molecular mechanisms underlying the beneficial and side effects of GC therapy are poorly understood. GCs exert their actions via the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) that alters gene expression by either binding as a dimer to GC response el...

Osteoclasts are multinucleated bone-resorbing cells and can be cultured from different monocytic precursors. It is unknown whether osteoclasts derived from different precursors are phenotypically different. One of the aspects not known is the life span of the different osteoclasts and the effect of IL-1β hereupon. Here, we studied this using time-lapse microscopy. Bone marrow cells were isolated from 6-week-old male mice. Early blasts (CD31hiLy-6C-),...

Background: Transient hyperphosphatasemia of infancy and early childhood (THI) is a benign, usually accidentally detected condition characterized by transiently increased activity of serum alkaline phosphatase (S-ALP), its bone or liver isoform, in children under five years of age, without signs of metabolic bone disease or hepatopathy. When encountered in a child with either chronic bone, liver or kidney disease, THI might concern the physician. We present a patient with urol...

Data on the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency in children with haematological malignancies (HM) in Sweden are scarce. Our studies indicate that one third of children with HM had vitamin deficiency/insufficiency already at the time of diagnosis. In this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of season and age at HM onset on vitamin D status by analysing 25(OH)D levels in two different age groups: children ≤6 years of age, and children >6 years of age...