Abstract
Osteoporosis is a common disease in which loss of bone mass results in skeletal fragility. The development of therapies for this disorder has been hampered by the lack of a convenient animal model. Here we describe a disorder in bone homeostasis in transgenic mice that inappropriately express the cytokine interleukin 4 (IL-4) under the direction of the lymphocyte- specific proximal promoter for the lck gene. Bone disease in lck-IL-4 mice appeared to result from markedly decreased bone formation by osteoblasts, features strikingly similar to those observed in cases of severe low-turnover human involutional osteoporosis. By 2 months of age, female and male lck-IL- 4 mice invariably developed severe osteoporosis of both cortical and trabecular bone. Osteoporosis was observed in two independently derived founder animals, indicating that this phenotype was directly mediated by the IL-4 transgene.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 11618-11622 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
Volume | 90 |
Issue number | 24 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1993 |
Keywords
- lck promoter
- osteoblasts
- osteoclasts
- osteopenia
- transgenic mice