Protein May Be Key to Preventing Bone Loss

Could protein be the key to preventing bone loss?

A small protein named GILZ appears to protect against bone loss, according to recent findings that will be presented at the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research 2014 Annual Meeting Sept. 12-15 in Houston.

For the study, researchers focused on tumor necrosis factor alpha--a proinflammatory cytokine that works to regulate immune cells and is a major player in arthritis. Tumor necrosis factor alpha primarily works through promoting inflammation, which is great if the target is cancer. However, when tumor necrosis factor alpha becomes dysregulated, it can also cause diseases such as arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.

To study the impact on bone loss, researchers cross-bred mice to overexpress tumor necrosis factor alpha throughout the body with mice that overexpressed GILZ in just their mesenchymal stem cells, which overproduce the osteoblasts that make bone and fat.

Findings revealed that the mice that overexpressed GILZ had significantly less bone loss.

"Our previous studies have shown that the GILZ transgenic mouse can make more bone," said Dr. Nianlan Yang, MCG postdoctoral fellow, in a news release. "We wanted to see if GILZ would still have a bone protective effect in an inflammatory environment similar to arthritis."

With future studies, researchers note that they hope to develop an oral medication via a peptie that increases GILZ expression rather than genetic alterations that researchers have used in animal models to help prevent the development of inflammation.