SUMMARY Parathyroid hormone (PTH) suppresses Dickkopf 1 (Dkk1) expression in osteoblasts. To determine whether this suppression is essential for PTH-mediated Wnt signaling and bone formation, we examined mice that overexpress Dkk1 in osteoblasts (Dkk1 mice). Dkk1 mice were osteopenic due to abnormal osteoblast and osteoclast activity. When fed a low calcium diet, and in two other models of hyperparathyroidism, these mice failed to develop the peritrabecular stromal cell response (“osteitis fibrosis”) and new bone formation seen in wild type mice. Despite these effects of Dkk1 overexpression, PTH still activated Wnt signaling in Dkk1 mice and in osteoblastic cells cultured from these mice. In cultured MC3T3E1 preosteoblastic cells, PTH dramatically suppressed Dkk1 expression, induced PKA-mediated phosphorylation of β-catenin and significantly enhanced Lef1 expression. Our findings indicate that the full actions of PTH require intact Wnt signaling but that PTH can activate the Wnt pathway despite overexpression of Dkk1.

The transcription factor, Runx2, promotes chondrocyte hypertrophy, whereas parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) delays this process. To examine whether PTHrP suppresses chondrocyte hypertrophy via Runx2-dependent or -independent pathways, Runx2 expression and chondrocyte differentiation were analyzed using bones from embryonic limbs of wild type and Runx2(-/-) mice. Treatment of cultured rudiments with PTH dramatically suppresses Runx2 mRNA levels in hypertrophic chondrocytes. PTH-induced delay of chondrocyte hypertrophy was observed in cultured tibiae from both Runx2(-/-) and wild-type embryos. This delay was also seen after PTH administration to limbs from wild type and Runx2(-/-) mice expressing Runx2 in chondrocytes via a collagen 2 promoter-driven transgene. To further explore Runx2-dependent and -independent effects of PTHrP, we examined embryonic tibiae and femurs from littermates null for PTHrP, Runx2, or both genes. Runx2(-/-) femurs exhibited no vascular invasion or chondrocytes expressing collagen type X or osteopontin mRNA. In contrast, Runx2(-/-)/PTHrP(-/-) mice exhibited limited vascular invasion and some chondrocytes expressing collagen X or osteopontin mRNA. In both tibia and femur, Runx2(-/-)/PTHrP(-/-) mice exhibited expanded regions of proliferating chondrocytes when compared to the same regions in PTHrP(-/-) mice. These data indicate that the delayed hypertrophy induced by PTHrP is mediated by both Runx2-dependent and -independent mechanisms.

PTH regulates osteoblastic function by activating PTH/PTHrP receptors (PTH1Rs), which trigger several signaling pathways in parallel, including cAMP/protein kinase A (PKA) and, via both phospholipase-C (PLC)-dependent and PLC-independent mechanisms, protein kinase C (PKC). These signaling functions have been mapped to distinct domains within PTH(1-34), but their roles in mediating the anabolic effect of intermittent PTH in vivo are unclear. We compared the anabolic effects in mice of hPTH(1-34) with those of two analogs having restricted patterns of PTH1R signaling. [G 1 ,R 19 ]hPTH(1-28) lacks the 29-34 domain of hPTH(1-34) needed for PLCindependent PKC activation, incorporates a Gly 1 mutation that prevents PLC activation, and stimulates only cAMP/PKA signaling. [G 1 ,R 19 ]hPTH(1-34) retains the 29-34 domain and activates both cAMP/PKA and PLC-independent PKC.Human PTH(1-34) (40 μg/kg), [G 1 ,R 19 ]hPTH(1-34) (120 μg/kg), and [G 1 ,R 19 ]hPTH(1-28) (800 μg/kg), at doses equipotent in elevating blood cAMP at 10 min and cAMP-dependent gene expression in bone at 6 h after s.c. injection, were administered to 10 week old female C57BL/6J mice 5 days/ week for 4 weeks. Acute blood cAMP responses, retested after 4 weeks, were not reduced by the preceding PTH treatment. The three PTH peptides induced equivalent increases in distal femoral bone mineral density (BMD), and, by microCT analysis, distal femoral and vertebral bone volume and trabecular thickness and mid-femoral cortical endosteal apposition. [G 1 ,R 19 ]hPTH(1-34) and hPTH(1-34) increased distal femoral BMD more rapidly and augmented total-body BMD and bone volume of proximal tibial trabeculi to a greater extent than did [G 1 ,R 19 ]hPTH(1-28),.We conclude that cAMP/PKA signaling is the dominant mechanism for the anabolic actions of PTH in trabecular bone and PLC-independent PKC signaling, attributable to the PTH(29-34) sequence, appears to accelerate the trabecular response and augment BMD at some skeletal sites. PTH1R PLC signaling pathway is not required for an anabolic effect of intermittent PTH(1-34) on bone.

No abstract

Sex determination pathways are astoundingly diverse in insects. For instance, the silk moth Bombyx mori uniquely use various components of the piRNA pathway to produce the Fem signal for specification of the female fate. In this study, we identified BmGTSF1 as a novel piRNA factor which participates in B. mori sex determination. We found that BmGtsf1 has a distinct expression pattern compared to Drosophila and mouse. CRISPR/Cas9 induced mutation in BmGtsf1 resulted in partial sex reversal in genotypically female animals by shifting expression of the downstream targets BmMasc and Bmdsx to the male pattern. As levels of Fem piRNAs were substantially reduced in female mutants, we concluded that BmGtsf1 plays a critical role in the biogenesis of the feminizing signal. We also demonstrated that BmGTSF1 physically interacted with BmSIWI, a protein previously reported to be involved in female sex determination, indicating BmGTSF1 function as the cofactor of BmSIWI. BmGtsf1 mutation resulted in piRNA pathway dysregulation, including piRNA biogenesis defects and transposon derepression, suggesting BmGtsf1 is also a piRNA factor in the silkworm. Furthermore, we found that BmGtsf1 mutation leads to gametogenesis defects in both male and female. Our data suggested that BmGtsf1 is a new component involved in the sex determination pathway in B. mori.

A higher PDGF-BB expression existed in the hypertrophied LF of patients with LSS and could be a risk factor of the fibrosis.

This study investigates therapeutic efficacy of photothermal therapy (PTT) in an orthotropic xenograft model of bone metastasis of breast cancer. The near-infrared (NIR) irradiation on Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWNTs) resulted in a rapid heat generation which increased with the MWNTs concentration up to 100 μg/ml. MWNTs alone exhibited no toxicity, but inclusion of MWNTs dramatically decreased cell viability when combined with laser irradiation. Thermographic observation revealed that treatment with 10 μg MWNTs followed by NIR laser irradiation resulted in a rapid increase in temperature up to 73.4±11.98 °C in an intraosseous model of bone metastasis of breast cancer. In addition, MWNTs plus NIR laser irradiation caused a remarkably greater suppression of tumor growth compared with treatment with either MWNTs injection or NIR irradiation alone, significantly reducing the amount of tumor-induced bone destruction. All these demonstrate the efficacy of PTT with MWNTs for bone metastasis of breast cancer.

Identification of stage‐ and tissue‐specific cis‐regulatory elements will enable more precise genomic editing. In previous studies of the silkworm Bombyx mori, we identified and characterized several tissue‐ and sex‐specific cis‐regulatory elements using transgenic technology, including a female‐ and fat body‐specific promoter, vitellogenin, testis‐specific promoters, Radial spoke head 1 (BmR1) and beta‐tubulin 4 (Bmβ4). Here we report a cis‐regulatory element specific for a somatic and germ cell‐expressed promoter, nanos (Bmnos). We investigated activities of three truncated promoter sequences upstream of the transcriptional initiation site sequences of Bmnos in vitro (nos‐0.6kb, nos‐1kb and nos‐2kb) and in vivo (nos‐2kb). In BmN cultured cells, all three lengths drove expression of the gene encoding enhanced green fluorescence protein (EGFP), although nos‐2kb had the highest fluorescence activity. In transgenic silkworms, nos‐2kb drove EGFP expression at the early embryonic stage, and fluorescence was concentrated in the gonads at later embryonic stages. In addition, this cis‐regulatory element was not sex differentiated. The fluorescence intensity gradually weakened following the larval developmental stage in the gonads and were broadly expressed in the whole body. The nos‐2kb promoter drove the Cas9 system with efficiency comparable to that of the broad‐spectrum strong IE1 promoter. These results indicate that Bmnos is an effective endogenous cis‐regulatory element in the early embryo and in the gonad that can be used in applications involving the clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 system.