RESUMO
Simon extracts are vitamin K(1)-rich food materials extracted from the leaves of the Simon sweet potato. Although vitamin K is known to stimulate bone formation, we postulated that Simon extracts also contain unknown biological compounds having the ability to regulate bone resorption. Here we prepared the vitamin K-free fraction from the Simon extracts and investigated the ability of this fraction on the differentiation of osteoclasts. A remarkable inhibitory effect of osteoclastogenesis was observed when osteoclast precursors were treated with this fraction in rat bone marrow culture systems as well as in a pure differentiation system using murine osteoclast precursor cell line. The vitamin K-free Simon extracts markedly suppressed severe bone destruction mediated by abundant osteoclasts associated with adjuvant-induced arthritis in rats. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis revealed that the vitamin K-free Simon extracts contained three types of low molecular weight inhibitors for osteoclastogenesis; caffeic acid, chlorogenic acids and isochlorogenic acids. Among these substances, caffeic acid showed the most powerful inhibitory effects on osteoclastogenesis. Caffeic acid significantly suppressed expression of NFATc1, a key transcription factor for the induction of osteoclastogenesis. Our current study enlightened a high utility of the Simon extracts and their chemical components as effective regulators for bone resorption accompanied with inflammation and metabolic bone diseases.