Preliminary study on the electromagnetic field treatment of osteoporosis in rats.

OBJECTIVE: In our study, the influence of PEMF on skeleton morphology and bone metabolism on rats with disuse osteoporosis was investigated, and the possibility of using it for the treatment of disuse osteoporosis was explored. METHODS: The rats in the ALN group were treated with alendronate, and the rats in the PEMF group were exposed to pulsed electromagnetic fields (3.82 mT, 10 Hz) for 40 mind-1. Rats were sacrificed by the end of 2, 4, 8 and 12 weeks, and serum and right leg bones were collected. Serum BMP-2, BGP concentrations and bone metabolism and biomechanical parameters were measured. RESULTS: The bone structural mechanical indices and material mechanical indices of the right femur in all groups of mice during weeks 2 and 4 were decreased. At week 8 the bone structural mechanical index and maximum stress of the right femur in the ALN group were markedly raised compared with the CON group (P< 0.01). Only maximum stress and strain were improved in the ALN group and had a significant difference (P< 0.05) at week 12. The serum BGP and BMP-2 concentration in the PEMF and ALN groups was increased (P< 0.05) at week 2, but this increase was not synchronized. After 8 weeks, BGP and BMP-2 level in the PEMF group was observably elevated (P<0.01) in contrast to the ALN group. CONCLUSION: From the experimental time interval analysis, PEMF can improve the mechanical stability of bone structure more gently and permanently than alendronate.

Integrated microarray analysis provided novel insights to the pathogenesis of glaucoma.

Glaucoma is characterized as a visual field defect, which is the second most common cause of blindness. The present study performed an integrated analysis of microarray studies of glaucoma derived from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Following the identification of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in glaucoma compared with normal control (NC) tissues, the functional annotation, glaucoma­specific protein­protein interaction (PPI) network and transcriptional regulatory network constructions were performed. The acute intraocular pressure (IOP) elevation rat models were established and reverse transcription­quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT­qPCR) was performed for DEGs expression confirmation. Three datasets were downloaded from GEO. A total of 97 DEGs, 82 upregulated and 15 downregulated were identified in glaucoma compared with NC groups with false discovery rate <0.05. Response to virus and immune response were two significantly enriched GO terms in glaucoma. Valine, leucine and isoleucine degradation was a significantly enriched pathway of DEGs in glaucoma. According to the PPI network, HDAC1, HBN, UBR4 and PDK1 were hub proteins in glaucoma. FOXD3, HNF­4 and AP­1 were the three transcription factors (TFs) derived from top 10 TFs which covered the majority of downstream DEGs in glaucoma. Based on the RT­qPCR results, the expression levels of 3 DEGs, raftlin, lipid raft linker 1 (RFTN1), PBX homeobox 1 (PBX1), HDAC1 were significantly upregulated and the expression of GEM was significantly downregulated in acute IOP elevation rat model at the first and fifth day. These four DEGs had the same expression pattern with our integrated analysis. Therefore, the current study concluded that 6 DEGs, including HEPH, SELENBP1, RFTN1, ID1, HDAC­1 and PBX1 and three TFs, including FOXD3, HNF­4 and AP­1 may be involved with the pathogenesis of glaucoma. The findings of the current study may improve diagnosis and drug design for glaucoma.