{"id":12263,"date":"2014-08-14T15:55:31","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T20:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/?p=12263"},"modified":"2014-08-13T17:47:01","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T22:47:01","slug":"a-gene-that-decreases-bone-loss-is-discovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/a-gene-that-decreases-bone-loss-is-discovered\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gene that Decreases Bone Loss is Discovered"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hueso-de-raton-vista-microscopio\"<\/a>The journal Nature Medicine<\/em> published in August 10 a research that discovered a gene that slows bone loss and promotes bone formation<\/strong>. With a greater understanding of Wnt4 signaling, researchers are now closer to developing therapeutic agents that could slow down bone loss<\/strong>, regenerate lost bone and inhibit the inflammation associated with osteoporosis and aging-related bone diseases.<\/p>\n

It is estimated that worldwide, 1 in 3 women over 50 will experience osteoporosis-related bone fractures, as will 1 in 5 men.<\/p>\n

Most current osteoporosis medications are developed to slow bone loss by targeting the resorption. But now, researchers from the\u00a0UCLA School of Dentistry\u00a0have taken an important step toward a more effective treatment of osteoporosis<\/strong>. A research team led by Dr. Cun-Yu Wang, a UCLA School of Dentistry professor, is developing a novel therapeutic agent that not only slows down bone destruction, but also promotes bone formation by suppressing inflammation in the bone marrow<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The researchers discovered that a growth factor called Wnt4 that is secreted into the bone marrow effectively prevents bone loss in mouse models of osteoporosis and skeletal aging. Wnt4 does this by inhibiting the protein complex NF-\u043aB signaling, a key pathway in the body\u2019s inflammatory processes.<\/p>\n

Wang\u2019s team\u00a0previously found\u00a0that Wnt4 protein could promote bone formation; in the new study, they created a strain of transgenic mice in which the Wnt4 gene was overexpressed in osteoblasts, or bone-forming cells. As expected, those mice exhibited increased bone mass compared with the control group, and they showed significantly less bone loss in an osteoporosis model. Surprisingly, the team discovered that Wnt4 protein not only promotes osteoblasts, but also suppresses the activity of osteoclasts, or bone-resorbing cells<\/strong>, as well as inflammation in the bone marrow.<\/p>\n

In order to understand the mechanisms of the action of Wnt4 protein, the researchers investigated its effect on NF-\u03baB signaling \u2014 a key part of the process during osteoclast formation and bone inflammation. Mice with hyperactive NF-\u03baB signaling<\/strong> developed arthritis-like symptoms and showed bone loss, but cross-mating these mice with Wnt4 transgenic mice effectively alleviated these symptoms. Wnt4 transgenic mice also displayed a slower decline of bone mass associated with advanced age<\/strong>. The team went on to show that Wnt4 protein could inhibit osteoclast formation\u00a0in vitro by removing a protein important for NF-\u03baB activation.<\/p>\n

Finally, to investigate the therapeutic use of Wnt4<\/strong> for osteoporosis, the team generated osteoporosis in mice and introduced recombinant Wnt4<\/strong> protein to those mice. They discovered a profound therapeutic effect of Wnt4<\/strong> protein in mice with osteoporosis. Bone loss was markedly reduced among the group receiving Wnt4 injections<\/strong>, supporting the theory that recombinant Wnt4<\/strong> protein could potentially be useful for treatment of osteoporosis and aging-related bone loss.<\/p>\n

Via<\/strong>: UCLA<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The journal Nature Medicine published in August 10 a research that discovered a gene that slows bone loss and promotes bone formation. With a greater understanding of Wnt4 signaling, researchers are now closer to developing therapeutic agents that could slow down bone loss, regenerate lost bone and inhibit the inflammation associated with osteoporosis and aging-related …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-12263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualidad-en-la-salud","tag-genomica","cat-3-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12263"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12290,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12263\/revisions\/12290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}