Abstract
Bone tissue engineering focuses on developing tissue constructs that stimulate bone growth. Crucial to this process is promoting signal tranduction pathways essential for bone growth while inhibiting those that limit bone growth. Sclerostin is a protein in the Wnt-signalling pathway that inhibits bone growth. Previous research suggests that the polysaccharide heparin inhibits sclerostin thereby allowing bone growth to occur. However, intermolecular interactions between heparin and sclerostin are not well understood. As such, we have investigated these interactions using surface plasmon resonance and long timescale molecular dynamics simulations. Our results show strong ‘nanomolar’ interactions in atomic detail. Thus, our results confirm that heparin has high affinity for sclerostin and may be a useful polymer for bone tissue engineering constructs.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call