No abstract

We recently found that estrogen deficiency leads to a lowering of thiol antioxidant defenses in rodent bone. Moreover, administration of agents that increase the concentration in bone of glutathione, the main intracellular antioxidant, prevented estrogen-deficiency bone loss, whereas depletion of glutathione by buthionine sulfoximine administration provoked substantial bone loss. To analyze further the mechanism by which antioxidant defenses modulate bone loss, we have now compared expression of the known antioxidant enzymes in osteoclasts. We found that glutathione peroxidase 1 (Gpx), the enzyme primarily responsible for the intracellular degradation of hydrogen peroxide, is overwhelmingly the predominant antioxidant enzyme expressed by osteoclasts and that its expression was increased in bone marrow macrophages by receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappaB ligand (RANKL) and in osteoclasts by 17beta-estradiol. We therefore tested the effect of overexpression of Gpx in osteoclasts by stable transfection of RAW 264.7 (RAW) cells, which are capable of osteoclastic differentiation in response to RANKL, with a Gpx-expression construct. Osteoclast formation was abolished. The Gpx expression construct also suppressed RANKL-induced nuclear factor-kappaB activation and increased resistance to oxidation of dihydrodichlorofluorescein by exogenous hydrogen peroxide. We therefore tested the role of hydrogen peroxide in the loss of bone caused by estrogen deficiency by administering pegylated catalase to mice. We found that catalase prevented ovariectomy-induced bone loss. These results suggest that hydrogen peroxide is the reactive oxygen species responsible for signaling the bone loss of estrogen deficiency.

The mechanisms through which estrogen prevents bone loss are uncertain. Elsewhere, estrogen exerts beneficial actions by suppression of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS stimulate osteoclasts, the cells that resorb bone. Thus, estrogen might prevent bone loss by enhancing oxidant defenses in bone. We found that glutathione and thioredoxin, the major thiol antioxidants, and glutathione and thioredoxin reductases, the enzymes responsible for maintaining them in a reduced state, fell substantially in rodent bone marrow after ovariectomy and were rapidly normalized by exogenous 17-β estradiol. Moreover, administration of N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) or ascorbate, antioxidants that increase tissue glutathione levels, abolished ovariectomy-induced bone loss, while L-buthionine-(S,R)-sulphoximine (BSO), a specific inhibitor of glutathione synthesis, caused substantial bone loss. The 17-β estradiol increased glutathione and glutathione and thioredoxin reductases in osteoclast-like cells in vitro. Furthermore, in vitro NAC prevented osteoclast formation and NF-κB activation. BSO and hydrogen peroxide did the opposite. Expression of TNF-α, a target for NF-κB and a cytokine strongly implicated in estrogen-deficiency bone loss, was suppressed in osteoclasts by 17-β estradiol and NAC. These observations strongly suggest that estrogen deficiency causes bone loss by lowering thiol antioxidants in osteoclasts. This directly sensitizes osteoclasts to osteoclastogenic signals and entrains ROS-enhanced expression of cytokines that promote osteoclastic bone resorption

We recently developed an experimental model whereby a single 10-min episode of mechanical stimulation induces bone formation in the eighth caudal vertebra of 13-wk-old rats. We used this model to relate the kinetics of the bone-forming response, as measured by administration of fluorescent markers, to an in situ hybridization analysis of changes in mRNA for two matrix proteins (type I collagen and osteocalcin) and a growth factor implicated in the regulation of bone formation [insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I). We found that increased fluorochrome labeling was accompanied by an increase in the proportion of trabecular bone surfaces on which transcripts for collagen type I and osteocalcin were detectable, from < 3 to 25% 72 h after loading. IGF-I expression on trabecular surfaces showed a slightly earlier increase. We also noted intense hybridization for IGF-I in osteocytes in the diaphyseal cortex and in metaphyseal trabeculae. This was observed only in loaded bones, within 6 h of loading, and became undetectable in trabecular osteocytes 48 h and cortical osteocytes 120 h after loading. This is the first identification of a specific mRNA species in osteocytes after mechanical stimulation. Its production before the increase in transcription of matrix protein mRNA, and before the transcription of IGF-I mRNA in bone surface cells, represents persuasive evidence for a role for osteocytes, and for IGF-I, in the osteogenic response of bone to mechanical stimulation.