Integrin alpha11 is an Osteolectin receptor and is required for the maintenance of adult skeletal bone mass
- University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, United States
- Tongji University, China
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, United States
Abstract
We previously discovered a new osteogenic growth factor that is required to maintain adult skeletal bone mass, Osteolectin/Clec11a. Osteolectin acts on Leptin Receptor+ (LepR+) skeletal stem cells and other osteogenic progenitors in bone marrow to promote their differentiation into osteoblasts. Here we identity a receptor for Osteolectin, integrin a11, which is expressed by LepR+ cells and osteoblasts. a11b1 integrin binds Osteolectin with nanomolar affinity and is required for the osteogenic response to Osteolectin. Deletion of Itga11 (which encodes a11) from mouse and human bone marrow stromal cells impaired osteogenic differentiation and blocked their response to Osteolectin. Like Osteolectin deficient mice, Lepr-cre; Itga11fl/fl mice appeared grossly normal but exhibited reduced osteogenesis and accelerated bone loss during adulthood. Osteolectin binding to a11b1 promoted Wnt pathway activation, which was necessary for the osteogenic response to Osteolectin. This reveals a new mechanism for maintenance of adult bone mass: Wnt pathway activation by Osteolectin/a11b1 signaling.
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Author details
Funding
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Sean J Morrison
National Institutes of Health (AG02494514)
- Sean J Morrison
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All procedures were approved by the UT Southwestern Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (protocol number 2016-101334-G).
Copyright
© 2019, Shen et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Integrin alpha11 is an Osteolectin receptor and is required for the maintenance of adult skeletal bone mass
eLife 8:e42274.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.42274
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