2020 Volume 16 Article ID: FFR2020_p57-64
Theobromine, a methylated derivative of xanthines, is included in some plants such as cocoa beans, tea and guarana. A recent in vitro study reported that theobromine possibly promotes osteoblast differentiation from mesenchymal stem cell (MSC). In this study, we investigated the effects of theobromine feeding to mice on the bone density and the proliferation and differentiation of MSC and hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) of the mice.
C57BL/6J mice were fed a normal diet (ND) and 0.05% theobromine-containing diet (TBD) for 4 weeks. The tibias of the mice were dissected to measure the bone mineral density. The MSCs and HSCs were collected from the bone marrow fluids. The proliferation ability, the ability of the MSCs to differentiate to osteoblasts and the ability of the HSCs to differentiate to osteoclasts were evaluated. The theobromine concentration of the bone marrow fluids was analyzed by an LC-MS/MS method.
The cortical bone density of the TBD group was significantly higher than that of the ND group. The proliferation and differentiation abilities of the MSCs from the TBD group significantly surpassed those from the ND group. The differentiation ability of the HSCs from the TBD group tended to be lower than that from the ND group (p = 0.1055). Theobromine was detected only in the TBD group at the concentration of 18.9 ± 5.6 pg/mL.
These results suggest that continuous intake of theobromine possibly increased the bone density by promoting the osteoblast proliferation and differentiation and suppressing the osteoclast differentiation.
