Confirmed the effectiveness of Treg cell transplantation in the treatment of fragile bone disease

The building blocks of the structure are made up of load-bearing elements that are rarely altered even when refurbished or repaired

Bones are dynamic: they are constantly breaking down and rebuilding to become the strongest of their own

Mutations in this bone regeneration process can cause bones to become fragile, and if this mutation is related to the amount of collagen produced in bones, connective tissue, skin, and cartilage, it can lead to fragile bone disease

Fragile bone disease, also known as osteogenesis imperfecta, currently affects 20,000 to 50,000 people in the United States, but it is also the most common inherited bone disease

Her goal is to find a safer way to treat this devastating disease

Mehrotra says healthy bones are constantly experiencing and reshaping their micro-fractures

There is a drug called bisphosphate that is currently being used to treat brittle bone disease

In a recent paper, iScience, the research team used regulatory T cells (Treg cells) as a previously unmet treatment for fragile bone disease

They found that the internal environment of mice with the disease was overinflamed

With Treg transplants, the researchers demonstrated that increasing the number of Tregs does promote bone remodeling, which makes bones stronger

Mehrotra and her team tested Treg cell transplantation with T cells from the affected mice themselves (autologous transplantation) and T cells from donor mice (allogeneic transplantation) and compared the results

In two transplants, Mehrotra found an increase in the number of osteoblasts and a decrease in the number of osteoclasts

But the part that excites her the most is that while both allogeneic and autologous transplants are effective, autologous transplants yield better

After studying hematopoietic stem cells and brittle bone disease in previous studies, Mehrotra came up with the idea

Next, she wanted to see why a genetic disease with a collagen mutation seemed to have nothing to do with immunity, but it had immunodeficiency
.
Then she wanted to see how increasing Treg had a positive effect on the
bones.
"For me, that's another puzzle," she said
.
Answering these two questions will help bring Treg cell transplants closer to the clinic for people with brittle bone disease
.

Quantitative increase in T regulatory cells enhances bone remodeling in osteogenesis imperfecta