Researchers have identified the role a critical enzyme plays in skeletal aging and bone loss, putting them one step closer to understanding the complex biological mechanisms that lead to osteoporosis, the bone disease that afflicts some 200 million people worldwide. Findings could hold an important key to developing more effective treatments for osteoporosis and improving the lives of an aging population.

The findings from their study in mice, published online in the journal Cell Stem Cell, could hold an important key to developing more effective treatments for osteoporosis and improving the lives of an aging population, they say.

Cells in the bone marrow known as mesenchymal stem cells serve as the building blocks of the body’s skeletal tissues, but whether these stem cells ultimately develop into bone or fat tissues is controlled in part by what are known as epigenetic factors — molecules that regulate genes, silencing some and activating others.

The UCLA researchers, led by distinguished professor Dr. Cun-Yu Wang, chair of oral biology at the dentistry school, demonstrated that when the epigenetic factor KDM4B is absent from mesenchymal stem cells, these cells are far more likely to differentiate into fat cells than bone cells, resulting in an unhealthy imbalance that exacerbates skeletal aging and leads to brittle bones and fractures over time.

«We know that bone loss comes with age, but the mechanisms behind extreme cases such as osteoporosis have, up until recently, been very vague,» said Dr Wang, the study’s corresponding author and the Dr. No-Hee Park Professor of Dentistry at UCLA. «In this study, we built on more than seven years of research managed by my postdoctoral scholar and lead author Dr. Peng Deng in the hope that we can eventually prevent skeletal aging and osteoporosis.»

While scientists have long understood the cellular pathway involved in bone tissue formation, the role of epigenetic factors has been murkier. Previous research by Wang, Deng and others had identified that the enzyme KDM4B plays an important epigenetic role in bone formation, but they were unsure of how its absence might affect the processes of bone formation and bone loss.

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