Prostate adenocarcinoma is associated with the formation of osteoblastic metastases in bone. It has been hypothesized that osteoclastic bone resorption is a critical component before the development of these osteoblastic lesions in bone. This observation has led researchers to test agents that inhibit osteoclastic activity to prevent or halt the formation of metastatic prostate cancer lesions i...

AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activation could protect osteoblasts from dexamethasone (Dex). This study aims to provoke AMPK activation via microRNA downregulation of its negative regulator protein kinase C ζ (PKCζ). Results show that microRNA-25-5p (miR-25-5p) targets PKCζ's 3' untranslated regions (UTRs). Forced-expression of miR-25 downregulated PKCζ and activated AMPK in human osteobl...

Previous studies have shown that mouse osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells undergo apoptosis when exposed to a mixture of proinflammatory cytokines. Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)s are important regulators of osteoblast differentiation. Because regulation of osteoblastic differentiation is poorly understood, we sought to determine if BMP-4-induced differentiation of osteoblastic cells depends on the ...

Semi-synthetic tetracyclines (TCs) have been reported to reduce pathological bone resorption through several mechanisms, although their effect over bone physiological metabolism is not yet fully understood. The present study aims at evaluate the behaviour of osteoblastic-induced human bone marrow cells regarding proliferation and functional activity, in the presence of representative therapeuti...

Microenvironmental expansion of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is induced by treatment with parathyroid hormone (PTH) or activation of the PTH receptor (PTH1R) in osteoblastic cells; however, the osteoblastic subset mediating this action of PTH is unknown. Osteocytes are terminally differentiated osteoblasts embedded in mineralized bone matrix but are connected with the BM. Activation of PTH1R...

Osteoblastic differentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) is involved in the pathogenesis of vascular calcification. Hydrogen sulfide (H(2)S) is a gas endogenously produced by cystathionine γ-lyase in VSMC. Here we determined whether H(2)S plays a role in phosphate-induced osteoblastic transformation and mineralization of VSMC. Hydrogen sulfide was found to inhibit calcium deposition...

Monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (CCL2) is a recently identified prominent regulator of prostate cancer growth and metastasis. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanistic role of CCL2 in prostate cancer growth in bone. The present study found that CCL2 was up-regulated in osteoblasts (3-fold by PC-3 and 2-fold by VCaP conditioned medium) and endothelial cells (2-fold by PC-3 ...

Osteosarcoma is the most common bone tumors in children and adolescents. Despite intensive chemotherapy, patients with advanced disease still have a poor prognosis, illustrating the need for alternative therapies. In this study, we explored the use of antibodies that block CD47 with a tumor growth suppressive effect on osteosarcoma. We first found that up-regulation of CD47 mRNA levels in the t...

With regards to their biological and physiochemical properties, titanium-based biomaterials have been successfully used in orthopaedic, dental and maxillo-facial surgery mainly as endosseous implants. The early osseointegration of titanium dental implants is an important factor for their clinical success. The implant loading to bone is influenced by various factors, including surface chemistry,...