Bone Abstracts

Interleukin- 34 (IL34) is a new, challenging cytokine discovered in 2008. It promotes the proliferation, survival and differentiation of the monocyte/macrophage lineage with almost the same efficiency as the macrophage-colony stimulating factor (M-CSF). IL34 has already been described to play a key role in various musculoskeletal bone diseases such as bone giant cell tumors or in rheumatoid arthritis. These ‘twin’ cytokines share a lot of functional similarities whic...

Owing to their anti-inflammatory effects, steroid therapy using glucocorticoids (GCs) is still part of the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), despite several severe side effects like glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (GIO). Until now the molecular mechanisms underlying the beneficial and side effects of GC therapy are poorly understood. GCs exert their actions via the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) that alters gene expression by either binding as a dimer to GC response el...

Vitamin D deficiency is common within Europe and the Middle East, especially in risk groups. While treatment is simple, there is no consensus on the diagnostic threshold for deficiency and the required dose. The Institute of Medicine and the Endocrine Society have established guidelines on the required 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels, supplementation doses and (extra)skeletal effects of vitamin D, coming to very different conclusions. The European Calcified Tissue Society...

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are widely used to treat chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid (RA) and lead to multiple side effects including glucocorticoid induced osteoporosis (GIO). Our work challenges the dogma that transrepression of pro-inflammatory genes by the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is solely responsible for reducing inflammation, whereas transactivation of genes is causing side effects.Using conditional and function selective mutant mic...