Dynamite News Study finds novel therapeutic avenues in bone repair
Birmingham researchers have proven PEPITEM, a naturally occurring peptide (small protein) has potential as a novel therapy for osteoporosis and other illnesses that entail bone loss, with specific advantages over conventional medications. Read further on Dynamite News:
Birmingham (UK): Birmingham researchers have proven PEPITEM, a naturally occurring peptide (small protein) has potential as a novel therapy for osteoporosis and other illnesses that entail bone loss, with specific advantages over conventional medications.
PEPITEM (Peptide Inhibitor of Trans-Endothelial Migration) was discovered in 2015 by University of Birmingham researchers.
The latest research, published today in Cell Reports Medicine, demonstrates for the first time that PEPITEM could be used as a novel and early clinical intervention to reverse the impact of age-related musculoskeletal diseases, with data demonstrating that PEPITEM enhances bone mineralisation, formation, and strength while also reversing bone loss in animal models of disease.
The research was funded by major grants from the Medical Research Council and the Lorna and Yuti Chernajovsky Biomedical Research Foundation, which funds pioneering research into the creation of new targeted medicines to improve health.
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Other funders included the British Society for Research on Ageing, and Versus Arthritis.
Bone is constantly formed, reformed, and remodelled throughout life, and up to 10% of human bone is replaced annually through a complex interplay between two cell types - osteoblasts, which form bone, and osteoclasts, which breakdown bone.
Disturbances to this tightly orchestrated process are responsible for features of diseases such as osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis, which show excessive bone breakdown, or ankylosing spondylitis, where abnormal bone growth occurs.
The most commonly used osteoporosis therapies (bisphosphonates) target osteoclasts to prevent further bone loss.
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Although there are new 'anabolic' agents that can promote new bone formation, these have limitations in their clinical use, with teriparatide (parathyroid hormone, or PTH) only being effective for 24 months and romosozumab (anti-sclerostin antibody) being associated with cardiovascular events.