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Translational medicine

Double protection for weakened bones

Nature volume 485, pages 47–48 (2012)Cite this article

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The protein Sema3A both restrains bone degradation and stimulates bone building in mice, suggesting a potential therapy for conditions such as osteoporosis. See Article p.69

Every step you take causes microscopic damage to your bones, and your skeleton must therefore be constantly remodelled to maintain its strength. Such remodelling involves the destruction and formation of bone, two processes that are tightly coupled and controlled by signalling molecules such as hormones1. A lack of one of these molecules can lead to rapid bone breakdown, as happens when the hormone oestrogen is lost in women after menopause — the resulting osteoporosis accounts for millions of fractures each year. Current treatments for osteoporosis fail to uncouple bone degradation and formation: they stimulate or inhibit both processes at the same time, albeit with different intensities. For these reasons, the results reported by Hayashi and co-workers2 on page 69 of this issue are truly exciting. The authors find that a protein known as Sema3A facilitates bone regeneration in mice by simultaneously reducing bone destruction and increasing bone synthesis, and could therefore lead to a new class of dual-action therapeutic agent for osteoporosis.

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Figure 1: Coupling bone synthesis and degradation.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mone Zaidi and Jameel Iqbal are at the Mount Sinai Bone Program, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York 10029, USA.,

    Mone Zaidi & Jameel Iqbal

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  1. Mone Zaidi
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  2. Jameel Iqbal
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Correspondence to Mone Zaidi.

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Zaidi, M., Iqbal, J. Double protection for weakened bones. Nature 485, 47–48 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/485047a

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