Low temperature decreases bone mass in mice: Implications for humans

OBJECTIVES

Humans exhibit significant ecogeographic variation in bone size and shape. However, it is unclear how significantly environmental temperature influences cortical and trabecular bone, making it difficult to recognize adaptation versus acclimatization in past populations. There is some evidence that cold-induced bone loss results from sympathetic nervous system activation and can be reduced by nonshivering thermogenesis (NST) via uncoupling protein (UCP1) in brown adipose tissue (BAT). Here we test two hypotheses: (1) low temperature induces impaired cortical and trabecular bone acquisition and (2) UCP1, a marker of NST in BAT, increases in proportion to degree of low-temperature exposure.

METHODS

We housed wildtype C57BL/6J male mice in pairs at 26 °C (thermoneutrality), 22 °C (standard), and 20 °C (cool) from 3 weeks to 6 or 12 weeks of age with access to food and water ad libitum (N = 8/group).

RESULTS

Cool housed mice ate more but had lower body fat at 20 °C versus 26 °C. Mice at 20 °C had markedly lower distal femur trabecular bone volume fraction, thickness, and connectivity density and lower midshaft femur cortical bone area fraction versus mice at 26 °C (p < .05 for all). UCP1 expression in BAT was inversely related to temperature.

DISCUSSION

These results support the hypothesis that low temperature was detrimental to bone mass acquisition. Nonshivering thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue increased in proportion to low-temperature exposure but was insufficient to prevent bone loss. These data show that chronic exposure to low temperature impairs bone architecture, suggesting climate may contribute to phenotypic variation in humans and other hominins.

Free Radical Initiated Peptide Sequencing for Direct Site Localization of Sulfation and Phosphorylation with Negative Ion Mode Mass Spectrometry

Tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) is the primary method for discovering, identifying, and localizing post-translational modifications (PTMs) in proteins. However, conventional positive ion mode collision induced dissociation (CID)-based MS/MS often fails to yield site-specific information for labile and acidic modifications due to low ionization efficiency in positive ion mode and/or preferential PTM loss. While a number of alternative methods have been developed to address this issue, most require specialized instrumentation or indirect detection. In this work, we present an amine-reactive TEMPO-based free radical initiated peptide sequencing (FRIPS) approach for negative ion mode analysis of phosphorylated and sulfated peptides. FRIPS-based fragmentation generates sequence informative ions for both phosphorylated and sulfated peptides with no significant PTM loss. Furthermore, FRIPS is compared to positive ion mode CID, electron transfer dissociation (ETD), as well as negative ion mode electron capture dissociation (niECD) and CID, both in terms of sequence coverage and fragmentation efficiency for phospho- and sulfo-peptides. Because FRIPS-based fragmentation has no particular instrumentation requirements and shows limited PTM loss, we propose this approach as a promising alternative to current techniques for analysis of labile and acidic PTMs.