Bone Mass and Osteoblast Activity Are Sex-Dependent in Mice Lacking the Estrogen Receptor α in Chondrocytes and Osteoblast Progenitor Cells.

ABSTRACT: While estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) is known to be important for bone development and homeostasis, its exact function during osteoblast differentiation remains unclear. Conditional deletion of ERα during specific stages of osteoblast differentiation revealed different bone phenotypes, which were also shown to be sex-dependent. Since hypertrophic chondrocytes can transdifferentiate into osteoblasts and substantially contribute to long-bone development, we aimed to investigate the effects of ERα deletion in both osteoblast and chondrocytes on bone development and structure. Therefore, we generated mice in which the ERα gene was inactivated via a Runx2-driven cyclic recombinase (ERα^fl/fl; ^Runx2Cre). We analyzed the bones of 3-month-old ERα^fl/fl;

SUBMITTER: Steppe L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8911122 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature