Bone healing induced by local delivery of an engineered parathyroid hormone prodrug.

Regenerative medicine requires innovative therapeutic designs to accommodate high morphogen concentrations in local depots, provide their sustained presence, and enhance cellular invasion and directed differentiation. Here we present an example for inducing local bone regeneration with a matrix-bound engineered active fragment of human parathyroid hormone (PTH(1-34)), linked to a transglutaminase substrate for binding to fibrin as a delivery and cell-invasion matrix with an intervening plasmin-sensitive link (TGplPTH(1-34)). The precursor form displays very little activity and signaling to osteoblasts, whereas the plasmin cleavage product, as it would be induced under the enzymatic influence of cells remodeling the matrix, was highly active. In vivo animal bone-defect experiments showed dose-dependent bone formation using the PTH-fibrin matrix, with evidence of both osteoconductive and osteoinductive bone-healing mechanisms. Results showed that this PTH-derivatized matrix may have potential utility in humans as a replacement for bone grafts or to repair bone defects.

Stromal complement receptor CD21/35 facilitates lymphoid prion colonization and pathogenesis.

We have studied the role of CD21/35, which bind derivatives of complement factors C3 and C4, in extraneural prion replication and neuroinvasion. Upon administration of small prion inocula, CD21/35(-/-) mice experienced lower attack rates and delayed disease over both wild-type (WT) mice and mice with combined C3 and C4 deficiencies. Early after inoculation, CD21/35(-/-) spleens were devoid of infectivity. Reciprocal adoptive bone marrow transfers between WT and CD21/35(-/-) mice revealed that protection from prion infection resulted from ablation of stromal, but not hemopoietic, CD21/35. Further adoptive transfer experiments between WT mice and mice devoid of both the cellular prion protein PrP(C) and CD21/35 showed that splenic retention of inoculum depended on stromal CD21/35 expression. Because both PrP(C) and CD21/35 are highly expressed on follicular dendritic cells, CD21/35 appears to be involved in targeting prions to follicular dendritic cells and expediting neuroinvasion following peripheral exposure to prions.

Expression and insights on function of potassium channel TWIK-1 in mouse kidney.

Renal distribution and function of TWIK-1, a member of the two-pore-domain potassium channel family, was studied in mouse kidney. TWIK-1 is expressed in apical and subapical localizations of proximal tubule and cytoplasmic sites of thin and thick ascending limbs, distal convoluted tubules and medullary collecting duct. Studies in mice lacking intact TWIK-1 (twik-1 -/-) and wild-type mice (twik-1 +/+) revealed an attenuated ability to increase renal phosphate (Pi) reabsorption and stabilize plasma Pi concentration in response to a low Pi diet in twik-1 -/- mice. Western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry for the electrogenic 3Na(+)-1HPO(4) (2-)-cotransporter NaPi-2a revealed a reduced reno-cortical expression in twik-1 -/- mice under these conditions. Under normal diet, twik-1 -/- mice presented lower urinary flow rates. Acute pharmacologic blockade of the vasopressin V(2)-receptor revealed both an attenuated diuretic response and an attenuated internalization of aquaporin-2 in the inner medullary collecting duct in twik-1 -/- versus +/+ mice. In summary, mice deficient for TWIK-1 presented impaired regulation of (i) Pi transport in proximal tubule and (ii) water transport in medullary collecting duct. TWIK-1 may contribute to membrane trafficking/expression of transport molecules in proximal tubule and medullary collecting duct, and possibly other renal sites of expression.