Bone Abstracts

Osteogenesis imperfecta is a disorder characterized by bone fragility. Current management includes the usage of bisphosphonates to improve bone stock and manage pain. Outcomes in adults have mainly been reported in terms of presentation compared to genotype, most probably due to the heterogeneity of the disease. The head and neck resection of the femur, or Girdlestone procedure, was a common procedure to treat infections of the hip but it has fallen out of favor due to the adv...

Autosomal Recessive Osteopetrosis (ARO) presents early in life with extreme sclerosis of the skeleton, reduction of bone marrow spaces, hepatosplenomegaly, cranial nerves compression and severe growth failure. ARO is often lethal and at present the only therapy is HSCT, which should be performed as soon as possible in order to obtain a major benefit. ARO is genetically heterogeneous and delays in clinical diagnosis sometimes occur, due to its rareness and to the presence of co...

Osteoclast-poor RANKL-dependent autosomal recessive osteopetrosis (ARO) is a rare bone disease characterized by an increase in bone density due to the failure of bone resorption by impaired osteoclast formation. Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation is not an effective therapy for this ARO form, since in bone RANKL is produced mainly by cells of mesenchymal origin. Whether also these cells, besides the osteoclast, are in some way affected by RANKL deficiency is not known. T...

Acrofrontofacionasal Dysostosis type 1 (AFFND1) is a rare human syndrome (estimated prevalence lower than 1:1,000,000), characterized by bone abnormalities in addition to other multiple congenital anomalies and intellectual disability. Only four AFFND1 families, three of Brazilian and one of Indian origin, have been described so far and an autosomal recessive pattern of inheritance has been suggested. The patients are severely affected: the main clinical features are intellect...

Multiple myeloma (MM)-bone disease occurs in 70 to 80% of patients at MM diagnosis, and up to 90% at relapse; skeletal related events cause high morbidity and mortality. MM-bone disease consists of lytic lesions arising as a consequence of an unbalanced bone remodelling due to osteoclast (OC) activation, and osteoblast inactivation. Osteoclastogenesis may be under immune cell regulation through the production of numerous cytokines, such as LIGHT/TNFSF14, a newly identified mem...

Since their initial discovery, microRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as critical post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression that are able to modulate bone remodeling. Nonetheless, despite the peculiar and aggressive phenotype of pagetic osteoclasts and the associated increase in osteoblast activity, whether deregulation of miRNAs is involved in Paget’s disease of bone (PDB) remains unknown. Here, we performed a serum miRNA expression profile (Taqman Human MicroRNA Array...

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Paget’s disease of bone (PDB) is a common disorder of bone metabolism characterized by focal areas of excessive and rapid bone resorption and formation, leading to bone pain, deformity and fractures. Despite the well documented increase in the risk of primary bone tumors due to neoplastic degeneration of pagetic tissue, a large retrospective analysis suggested that patients with prostate cancer and PDB have delayed time to bone metastases and improved overall survival tha...

LIGHT (TNFSF14), expressed by different cells of the immune system, binds two trans-membrane receptors: HVEM and LTβR. It is over-expressed in erosive rheumatoid arthritis and lytic myeloma-bone disease and controversial data have been published on its role osteoclast (OC) formation in vitro. Here, we investigated the role of LIGHT on in vitro murine osteoclastogenesis model and bone phenotype in LIGHT−/− mice. Firstly, we showed that murin...

Sclerostin (SCL) and FGF23 are osteocyte-secreted factors with a major role in bone homeostasis. Despite their skeletal effects and their association with fracture risk in some studies, variations in circulating levels were also described in patients with diabetes (DM), chronic renal failure (CRF) and/or cardiovascular disease (CVD). In order to provide further insight on the relationship between these osteocyte-derived factors, osteoporosis and cardio-metabolic disorders we a...