Sclerostin: A Novel Key to Bone and Dental Treatment
- 1 Università di Parma Via Gramsci, Italy
- 2 Università di Parma, Italy
Abstract
Problem statement: Tooth loss can induce dramatical remodeling of alveolar bone because of mechanical loading impairment and strategies to help maintain adequate bone levels for subsequent therapies are sorely needed. Recent discoveries have shown that osteocytes, matrix-embedded cells in bone, respond to mechanical stimulation by modulating the expression of the Sost gene, which encodes for the protein sclerostin. This protein can oppose the WNT canonical pathway, a signaling cascade which regulates osteoblastic differentiation and bone homeostasis and thus orchestrate bone turn-over according to the skeleton’s mechanical needs. Conclusion: Experimental attempts at Sclerostin inhibition have provided interesting data on a novel approach to decrease bone resorption and promote bone formation, with important implications for the orthopedic and dental field.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/crdsp.2012.18.26
Copyright: © 2012 Galli Carlo, Lumetti Simone, Manfredi Edoardo, Macaluso Guido and Passeri Giovanni. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- Sost protein
- osteocyte
- alveolar bone loss