Periosteum-derived cells respond to mechanical stretch and activate Wnt andBMP signaling pathways

Abstract

The periosteum supplies osteoblasts and nutrients for bone metabolism and is important for osteoblastdifferentiation and osteogenesis. Recently, periosteum-derived cells have been used for orofacialbone regeneration therapy. However, little is known about the function of the periosteum inphysiological bone remodeling. On our hypothesis that the periosteum senses a mechanical stressto induce bone remodeling, we subjected human jaw bone periosteum cells (HJBPCs) to uniaxialstretching for 24 h and characterized their gene expression profiles by microarray analysis. Of62,976 genes detected, 550 genes related to bone metabolism were extracted, and 76 of thesegenes with large changes in gene expression were short-listed. The results indicated that mechanicalstretch in HJBPCs regulated the expression levels of genes involved in the Wingless-typeMMTV integration (Wnt) site, bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling pathways, and inflammatorycytokines. We propose that periosteum-derived cells sense mechanical stress and thenactivate and regulate signals for osteoblast differentiation and osteogenesis.