No bones about a genetic switch for bone growth

Biological basis of bone formation, remodeling, and repair-part I: biochemical signaling molecules

The bony biochemical environment is an active and dynamic system that permits and promotes cellular functions that lead to matrix production and ossification. Each component is capable of conveying important regulatory cues to nearby cells, thus effecting gene expression and changes at the cytostructural level. Here, we review the various signaling molecules that contribute to the active and dynamic nature of the biochemical system. These components include hormones, cytokines, and growth factors. We describe their role in regulating bone metabolism. Certain growth factors (i.e., TGF-beta, IGF-1, and VEGF) are described in greater detail because of their potential importance in developing successful tissue-engineering strategies.

[Anomalies of the skull in cleidocranial dysplasia]

BACKGROUND

The description of the otorhinolaryngeal and craniofacial anomalies in patients with cleidocranial dysplasia.

METHODS

For this study, 26 patients with cleidocranial dysplasia were examined after their medical history had been recorded. The main focus was placed on otorhinolaryngological and orthodontic findings.

RESULTS

The portion of spontaneous mutations in our patient population was 46.1%. All patients exhibited otorhinolaryngological and craniofacial anomalies. While single ENT-anomalies were expressed in 76.9%-92.3% of the patients, the craniofacial findings were distributed over 84.6%-92.3%.

CONCLUSION

The expression of this rare disorder is variable and its symptomatology not always distinct. Otorhinolaryngological and craniofacial anomalies are often apparent. Appropriate treatment can significantly contribute to an improvement in the patient's quality of life. In cases of ambiguous findings, we recommend consultation with an experienced clinician as well as genetic counselling.

From Wolff's law to the Utah paradigm: insights about bone physiology and its clinical applications

Efforts to understand our anatomy and physiology can involve four often overlapping phases. We study what occurs, then how, then ask why, and then seek clinical applications. In that regard, in 1960 views, bone's effector cells (osteoblasts and osteoclasts) worked chiefly to maintain homeostasis under the control of nonmechanical agents, and that physiology had little to do with anatomy, biomechanics, tissue-level things, muscle, and other clinical applications. But it seems later-discovered tissue-level mechanisms and functions (including biomechanical ones, plus muscle) are the true key players in bone physiology, and homeostasis ranks below the mechanical functions. Adding that information to earlier views led to the Utah paradigm of skeletal physiology that combines varied anatomical, clinical, pathological, and basic science evidence and ideas. While it explains in a general way how strong muscles make strong bones and chronically weak muscles make weak ones, and while many anatomists know about the physiology that fact depends on, poor interdisciplinary communication left people in many other specialties unaware of it and its applications. Those applications concern 1.) healing of fractures, osteotomies, and arthrodeses; 2.) criteria that distinguish mechanically competent from incompetent bones; 3.) design criteria that should let load-bearing implants endure; 4.) how to increase bone strength during growth, and how to maintain it afterwards on earth and in microgravity situations in space; 5.) how and why healthy women only lose bone next to marrow during menopause; 6.) why normal bone functions can cause osteopenias; 7.) why whole-bone strength and bone health are different matters; 8.) why falls can cause metaphyseal and diaphyseal fractures of the radius in children, but mainly metaphyseal fractures of that bone in aged adults; 9.) which methods could best evaluate whole-bone strength, "osteopenias" and "osteoporoses"; 10.) and why most "osteoporoses" should not have bone-genetic causes and some could have extraosseous genetic causes. Clinical specialties that currently require this information include orthopaedics, endocrinology, radiology, rheumatology, pediatrics, neurology, nutrition, dentistry, and physical, space and sports medicine. Basic science specialties include absorptiometry, anatomy, anthropology, biochemistry, biomechanics, biophysics, genetics, histology, pathology, pharmacology, and cell and molecular biology. This article reviews our present general understanding of this new bone physiology and some of its clinical applications and implications. It must leave to other times, places, and people the resolution of questions about that new physiology, and to understand the many devils that should lie in its details. (Thompson D'Arcy, 1917).

Cybernetic aspects of bone modeling and remodeling, with special reference to osteoporosis and whole-bone strength

Assume mythical physiologists were taught that renal physiology and its disorders depend on "kidney cells" and their regulation by nonmechanical factors, but were taught nothing about nephrons. For decades they "knew" that idea was correct, just as Ptolemy "knew" the universe centers on our planet. But then others began to describe nephrons, their roles in renal physiology and disorders, and problems they revealed in former views, so doubts and controversies began. Today real physiologists encounter a similar situation for bone health and its disorders. A 1960 paradigm attributed such things to bone's effector cells (osteoblasts and osteoclasts) and their regulation by nonmechanical factors, without "nephron-equivalent" or biomechanical input. But both mechanical and nonmechanical factors regulate bone's nephron equivalents. Adding features of those equivalents to the 1960 views led to the Utah paradigm, which suggests problems in former views and better explanations for "osteoporosis," whole-bone strength, and other bone disorders. Such things incited controversies among current skeletal physiologists. Cybernetics concerns the relationships, mechanisms, signals, and message traffic that help to control the behavior and other features of dynamic systems. A cybernetic analysis of the bone physiology in the Utah paradigm can add many features to the 1960 paradigm that help to understand osteoporoses, other bone disorders, and whole-bone strength (and bone mass). The added features also show new and pertinent targets for the related research.

Mucins and molluscan calcification. Molecular characterization of mucoperlin, a novel mucin-like protein from the nacreous shell layer of the fan mussel Pinna nobilis (Bivalvia, pteriomorphia)

A cDNA expression library constructed from mantle tissue mRNA of the Mediterranean fan mussel Pinna nobilis was screened with antibodies raised against the acetic acid-soluble shell matrix of the same species. This resulted in the isolation of a 2138-base pair cDNA, containing 13 tandem repeats of 93 base pairs. The deduced protein has a molecular mass of 66.7 kDa and a isoelectric point of 4.8. This protein, which is enriched in serine and proline residues, was overexpressed, purified, and used for producing polyclonal antibodies. Immunological in situ and in vitro tests showed that the protein is localized in the nacreous aragonitic layer of P. nobilis, but not in the calcitic prisms. Because this protein of the nacre of P. nobilis exhibits some mucin-like characteristics, we propose the name mucoperlin. This is the first paper reporting the cloning of a molluscan mucin and the first molecular evidence for the involvement of a mucin in molluscan calcification. This finding corroborates our previous hypothesis that some of the proteinaceous constituents of the molluscan shell matrix would derive from mucins, common to many metazoan lineages of the late Precambrian (Marin, F., Smith, M., Isa, Y., Muyzer, G. and Westbroek, P. (1996) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 93, 1554-1559). The adaptation of an ancestral mucin to a new function, the regulation of the mineralization process, may be one of the molecular events, among others, that would explain the simultaneous emergence of organized calcification in many metazoan lineages during the Cambrian explosion.