Mouse embryonic stem cell transplantation for treatment of osteoporosis

Fan Zhi-gang; Wang Dong

doi:10.3969/j.issn.2095-4344

Abstract：BACKGROUND:Because of poor therapeutic effects of drug treatment, stem cel transplantation has become a hot spot in the treatment of osteoporosis. OBJECTIVE:To investigate the therapeutic efficacy of embryonic stem cel transplantation in the treatment of estrogen deficiency-induced osteoporosis. METHODS: Thirty female healthy C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into model, sham-operated, and treatment groups, with 10 mice in each group. Ovariectomized models were established. In the treatment group, embryonic stem cels were injected by tail vein at 1 day after modeling, and there was no treatment in the other two groups. After 10 hours of treatment, flow cytometry was used to detect the apoptosis of T-lymphocytes; after 3 days of treatment, ELISA assay was used to detect the level of tumor necrosis factor-α in mouse serum; after 1 month of treatment, micro-CT was employed to determine the number of bone trabeculae and bone mineral density. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Compared with the sham-operated group, the number of bone trabeculae and bone mineral density were lower in the model group, while the serum level of tumor necrosis factor-α was higher in the model group. After embryonic stem cel transplantationvia the tail vein, the number of bone trabeculae and the bone volume fraction were increased certainly, the serum level of umor necrosis factor-α was decreased, and the number of apoptotic T-lymphocytes was increased in the treatment group, which significantly differed from those in the model group (P< 0.05). These findings indicate that embryonic stem cel therapy has a certain effect on the treatment of osteoporosis, which may play a role through immune regulation.