Aging Versus Postmenopausal Osteoporosis: Bone Composition and Maturation Kinetics at Actively-Forming Trabecular Surfaces of Female Subjects Aged 1 to 84 Years

Abstract

Bone strength depends on the amount of bone, typically expressed as bone mineral density (BMD), determined by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), and on bone quality. Bone quality is a multifactorial entity including bone structural and material compositional properties. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether bone material composition properties at actively-forming trabecular bone surfaces in health are dependent on subject age, and to contrast them with postmenopausal osteoporosis patients. To achieve this, we analyzed by Raman microspectroscopy iliac crest biopsy samples from healthy subjects aged 1.5 to 45.7 years, paired biopsy samples from females before and immediately after menopause aged 46.7 to 53.6 years, and biopsy samples from placebo-treated postmenopausal osteoporotic patients aged 66 to 84 years. The monitored parameters were as follows: the mineral/matrix ratio; the mineral maturity/crystallinity (MMC); nanoporosity; the glycosaminoglycan (GAG) content; the lipid content; and the pyridinoline (Pyd) content. The results indicate that these bone quality parameters in healthy, activelyforming trabecular bone surfaces are dependent on subject age at constant tissue age, suggesting that with advancing age the kinetics of maturation (either accumulation, or posttranslational modifications, or both) change. For most parameters, the extrapolation of models fitted to the individual age dependence of bone in healthy individuals was in rough agreement with their values in postmenopausal osteoporotic patients, except for MMC, lipid, and Pyd content. Among these three, Pyd content showed the greatest deviation between healthy aging and disease, highlighting its potential to be used as a discriminating factor.

Effect of anti-sclerostin therapy and osteogenesis imperfecta on tissue-level properties in growing and adult mice while controlling for tissue age

“…This data directly shows that matrix properties at the same tissue age vary with the age of animal in which the tissue is formed. Similar mineral-to-matrix findings have recently been observed in a study of human biopsies from subjects 1 to 84 years old [31]. In addition, we note that several studies have looked at the effect of tissue age within a single animal age [32, 33], or less directly studied the interaction between the age of the animal and tissue age by examining numerous animal ages [34, 35], or inferring tissue age by osteonal morphology [36].…”

Region specific Raman spectroscopy analysis of the femoral head reveals that trabecular bone is unlikely to contribute to non-traumatic osteonecrosis

“…The sample size of the study is modest but keeping in the context of non-traumatic ON, contrary to many studies 17, 25, 36, 37 , a control group was provided and the population size of the control group was larger than observed in most similar studies 15, 33, 35 . Age-related increase of crystallinity (and to some extent the decrease of the proteoglycan content) was an expected between-group difference 38 and was confirmed by multivariate analysis. Age differences between groups did not seem to have induced significant differences regarding the other parameters according to univariate analysis.…”

Phenotypic Spectrum in Osteogenesis Imperfecta Due to Mutations in TMEM38B: Unraveling a Complex Cellular Defect

“…At each tissue age, the mineral/matrix ratio, nanoporosity (a surrogate of tissue water), glycosaminoglycan, lipid and pyridinoline content were determined, as previously described 18 . Results from bone histomorphometry, qBEI and Raman analysis were compared to paediatric reference data from healthy subjects, and type I OI patients 17 19-23 .…”