Bone Abstracts

Objective: Cartilage loss and subchondral bone changes are hallmarks of osteoarthritis (OA). The Wnt family is involved in the regulation of bone and cartilage. We have shown that the Wnt/β-catenin pathway is activated in bone during OA, but the effect of its inhibition in bone in cartilage remodeling is unknown. We here investigated the impact of the bone-specific inhibition of Wnt during the development of OA.Methods: Partial meniscectomy (Mnx) wa...

Being efficient and productive in research is frequently linked to a structured organization of the available research time. This applies to any individual scientist including PhD students, Postdocs, or PIs. In particular PIs but also to some extend more senior Postdocs have a responsibility for more junior scientists and in the case of PIs even of an entire research team. This does not only require overseeing and organizing his own time but also the time and workload of other...

Bone is a highly dynamic tissue that is constantly dismantled and rebuilt throughout life by the coordinated and balanced activities of matrix-resorbing osteoclasts, bone-forming osteoblasts and matrix-embedded osteocytes. This system is governed by interconnected signaling pathways, transcription factors, secreted regulators, genetic determinants and epigenetic cues including non-coding RNAs. Canonical Wnt signaling is among the most influential pathways regulating tissue dev...

Osteosarcoma is the most prevalent primary bone tumor that occurs mainly during adolescence. Osteosarcoma is an aggressive mesenchymal tumor that often arises due to mutations in the tumor suppressor gene p53. Treatment of osteosarcoma patients includes chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgical approaches. Nevertheless, at advanced stages the survival rate is rather low. Thus, a better understanding of the underlying biology of osteosarcoma might help to develop novel thera...

Biographical DetailsEric HesseEric Hesse studied Medicine at Hannover Medical School in Germany where he became MD in 2003. He was trained in Orthopedic Surgery and graduated as PhD in 2007 in Genetics & Cell Biology in Hannover, Germany. In 2005, he moved as a Postdoctoral Fellow funded by the German Research Foundation to the laboratory of Dr ...

Increasing bone formation is an effective approach to prevent osteoporotic fractures. Although the intermittent administration of PTH is an established osteoanabolic therapy and an anti-Sclerostin antibody (Scle-AB) is currently being tested in phase 3 clinical trials, a great need exists for additional bone anabolic agents. Thus, in the context of a bi-national consortium we aim to uncover novel epigenomic networks controlling bone formation to identify new epigenomic approac...

Background: There are no models for estimating risk of fracture in patients taking treatments for osteoporosis. Knowing a patient’s risk of fracture during treatment may help make future treatment decisions; therefore, the development of on-treatment fracture risk models is needed.Methods: To assess on-treatment fracture risk, the analysis included subjects who received denosumab (DMAb) 60 mg Q6 every 6 months for at least 1 year in either FREEDOM o...

Introduction: The calcium sensing receptor presence (CaSR) at the surface of the osteocytes has never been clearly investigated. The CaSR are known to be express on osteoblasts. Osteocytes being old osteoblasts embedded in the matrix, this expression of CaSR is likely, and could constitute a key role to calcium signalling.Strontium ranelate (SrRan) has shown to activate osteoblasts by fixation on CaSR (Chattopadhyay N 2007, Biochem Pharmacol; Hu...

Objectives: Strong coordination between osteoblasts and bone marrow cells is fundamental for the regulation of healthy bone turnover and other (patho)physiological processes. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) mediate communication between cells via horizontal transfer of proteins and nucleic acids. Osteoblasts secrete EVs in the form of matrix vesicles involved in bone mineralization, however, information about a role in intercellular communication is still lacking. In this study, ...

Introduction: Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is increasingly used in hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantations; however, the low cell numbers are still remaining as a limiting factor for proper engraftment. Osteoblasts are major constituents of HSC niche and play important roles in regulating HSC self-renewal and differentiation. Recently, extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been implicated in stem cell fate regulation via horizontal transfer of proteins and nucleic acids betwe...