Bone health is a fundamental aspect of overall well-being, but millions of people suffer from diseases that weaken bones and lead to pain, fractures and a lower quality of life. While current treatments focus primarily on preventing further bone loss, a revolutionary discovery promises to not only halt this deterioration, but also actively promote bone growth. This is PEPITEM, a natural peptide with the unique ability to stimulate the formation of new, stronger bone, while preventing bone breakdown. This dual-action approach could revolutionise the way we treat common bone diseases such as osteoporosis and arthritis, bringing new hope to patients around the world.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham, led by Professor Helen McGettrick, have made a significant breakthrough in bone health by exploring the therapeutic potential of a new peptide known as PEPITEM. Their work, published in Cell Reports Medicine, reveals how PEPITEM could stimulate bone growth and help prevent bone loss, offering new hope for the treatment of a range of bone-related diseases.
Professor McGettrick, along with her team, Dr Jonathan Lewis, Dr Amy Naylor, Dr James Edwards and Kathryn Frost, focused on understanding how PEPITEM could improve bone repair. As populations age, the need for effective treatments to combat bone degeneration, such as osteoporosis, becomes increasingly critical. This research provides a new perspective on the management of bone health and presents PEPITEM as a potential game-changer in this field.
The study found that PEPITEM could significantly increase the activity of osteoblastic cells responsible for forming new bone while simultaneously reducing the activity of osteoclasts, which break down bone tissue. This dual action is particularly important because it not only supports new bone formation, but also helps prevent bone loss – a crucial combination for maintaining bone strength and health. Since current treatments for bone diseases often involve either slowing bone loss or stimulating bone formation, PEPITEM’s ability to do both could represent a significant improvement over existing therapies.
To observe the effects of PEPITEM, the researchers used advanced modelling techniques, which showed that the peptide could increase bone density, a key indicator of bone health. Bone density refers to the amount of bone mineral in bone tissue, which determines the strength and durability of bones. Professor McGettrick emphasised the importance of these results, stating: “Our study shows that PEPITEM has the potential to significantly improve bone repair and prevent bone loss, which could improve the quality of life of patients with bone diseases.”
In addition to repair, PEPITEM can also serve as a preventative treatment, particularly for those at risk of significant bone density loss due to aging or chronic disease. Its ability to promote osteoblast activity while inhibiting osteoclasts makes it a promising option for maintaining bone health over time.
Looking ahead, the research team plans to conduct further studies to better understand the long-term effects of PEPITEM and explore its potential in the clinical setting. “The next step is to translate our findings into clinical practice,” said Professor McGettrick. “We hope that PEPITEM will become a key element in the treatment of bone health in the near future.”
In conclusion, the development of PEPITEM as a therapeutic agent represents a significant advance in the treatment of bone disorders. By promoting both bone formation and preventing bone loss, PEPITEM could play a key role in the management of bone health, offering new hope to people affected by bone diseases.
Journal reference
Lewis JW, Frost K, Neag G, et al. “Therapeutic pathways in bone repair: harnessing an anabolic osteopeptide, PEPITEM, to stimulate bone growth and prevent bone loss.” Cell Reports Medicine. 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101574
About the authors
As an experimental biologist with over 18 years of research experience, Professor Helen McGettrick He has gained an internationally recognised reputation for his innovative and distinctive research in the fields of inflammation, vascular and stromal biology in health and disease, and in particular the use of innovative experimental approaches to improve our understanding of clinically significant conditions. He leads the Inflammation, Vascular and Bone Research Group at the University of Birmingham. With his team, he has developed a portfolio of novel multicellular and multilayer three-dimensional models. in vitro models (co-cultures, organoids, organs/tissues on a chip) and combines them with ex vivo Analyzing patient samples, preclinical disease models, and big data to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underpinning inflammation and tissue repair, with the goal of translating these findings to patient benefit. Her team is currently seeking to expand our understanding of physiological resilience to stress events (e.g. inflammation, age, surgery, disease, obesity) across the lifespan and to develop novel biomarkers and/or therapies to address “stress event”-induced frailty within the population.
Jonathan Lewis Jonathan is a postdoctoral researcher based at the University of Birmingham, UK. He holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, where he explores bone in healthy and disease states and in response to therapies, supervised by Professor Helen McGettrick, Dr James Edwards and Dr Amy Naylor. His PhD was funded by the Medical Research Council Versus Arthritis Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research (CMAR). Jonathan is currently exploring changes in multiple human systems (e.g. immune, muscle and adipose) during ageing and in response to stressful events, as well as investigating bone homeostasis through novel organoid models.
Amy Naylor Amy is an Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, UK. She completed her PhD in bone development at Newcastle University, UK and has since dedicated her research to studying bone formation during inflammation and throughout life. The significance of this work has been recognised in the form of two personal grants from the charity Versus Arthritis. With funding from NC3Rs and EPSRC, Amy has made possible the development of in vitro Bone organoid models are a research priority and we are committed to disseminating and collaborating with other research groups to increase the adoption of this methodology.
James Edwards He leads the Ageing and Regeneration Research Group at the University of Oxford. This work reveals the causes of age-related deterioration in multiple tissues and explores new approaches to better treat the consequences of ageing.
Drawing on his background in musculoskeletal science and bone biology, James has focused his research on the inextricable link between ageing and longevity factors, and the onset and progression of age-related disorders including bone loss and arthritic disease. This has included studying the biology of sirtuins in musculoskeletal tissues and how the acetylation status of key intracellular proteins fine-tunes normal cellular biology and function with increasing age, how the cellular recycling process of autophagy is decreased in aged cartilage and can be activated to protect against arthritic disease, and how novel degradable alloys can enhance fracture healing and bone repair. This work has shown how natural products such as polyamines and polyphenols can be targeted, exert direct and significant effects on the mechanisms of ageing to preserve normal cellular biology and tissue structure, and may protect against the onset of disease with increasing age.
Recent work has developed an integrated cellular, genomic and proteomic platform for the evaluation of new and repurposed drugs and has revealed new indications for well-tolerated and established classes of agents in aging-related diseases, such as cardiovascular disease.
Kathryn Frost:I am a final year PhD student studying the effects of novel therapies for age-related bone disorders at the University of Birmingham's Centre for Translational Inflammation Research. My research career began in neuroscience at the University of Nottingham, where I investigated age-related changes of the spinal cord dorsal horn during postnatal development. This fuelled my interest in age-related changes in complex biological systems and led to my current project focusing on alleviating bone loss and promoting bone remodelling in disease. Upon completion of my PhD, I will be moving to Universidade do Porto, where I will combine my interests and investigate the interactions of the nervous system and the skeletal system.
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