Abstract
With increasing life expectations, more and more patients suffer from fractures either induced by intensive sports or other bone-related diseases. The balance between osteoblast-mediated bone formation and osteoclast-mediated bone resorption is the basis for maintaining bone health. Osterix (Osx) has long been known to be an essential transcription factor for the osteoblast differentiation and bone mineralization. Emerging evidence suggests that Osx not only plays an important role in intramembranous bone formation, but also affects endochondral ossification by participating in the terminal cartilage differentiation. Given its essentiality in skeletal development and bone formation, Osx has become a new research hotspot in recent years. In this review, we focus on the progress of Osx’s function and its regulation in osteoblast differentiation and bone mass. And the potential role of Osx in developing new therapeutic strategies for osteolytic diseases was discussed.
Highlights
Two decades ago, osterix (Osx) was first discovered by Nakashima et al (2002)
Cbl-b and c-Cbl did not affect the protein levels of other osteogenic transcription factors such as Dlx3, distal-less homeobox 5 (Dlx5), and Msh homeobox 2 (Msx2). These results suggest that Cbl-b and c-Cbl regulate the function of Osx during osteoblast differentiation
The current literatures have demonstrated that Osx plays a critical role in osteogenesis differentiation
Summary
Osterix (Osx) was first discovered by Nakashima et al (2002). Known as Sp7, is a zinc finger-containing osteoblast-specific transcription factor belonging to the SP/KLF family (Nakashima et al, 2002; Suske et al, 2005). Osx is expressed in osteoblast-lineage cells, chondrocytes and overexpressed in various cancer tissues (Qu et al, 2019). The Osx protein is highly conserved between human and mouse with an overall amino acid sequence identity of 95%. The transcription factor Osx induces the expression of a slew of mature osteoblast genes such as collagen typeI a1 (Col1a1), Osteonectin, Osteopontin, Osteocalcin, and Bone sialoprotein (Bsp) which are all necessary for productive osteoblasts during the creation of ossified bone (Renn and Winkler, 2009). Several genome-wide association studies have demonstrated a correlation between Osx’s certain polymorphisms and decreased bone mineral density in children and adults, and clinical
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