Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Under appropriate conditions, enhanced adipogenic differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) can promote the formation of adipocytes in vivo.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the influence of ovariectomy on rat body mass, and to analyze the pathological mechanism from the point of functional changes of BMSCs.
METHODS: Healthy female Sprague-Dawley rats of similar ages, body mass and from the same batch were selected and randomly divided into two groups. In the ovariectomy group, osteoporosis was induced by resection of bilateral ovaries. In the sham-surgery group, partial adipose tissue adjacent to bilateral ovaries was resected. Three months later, bone quality of the femur and body mass were determined by Micro-CT examination in each group. Rat BMSCs were isolated and cultured in vitro till passage 5. After adipogenic inducation, oil red O staining of lipid drops was used to detect the adipogenic ability of BMSCs; reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction was used to detect the mRNA expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma and lipoprotein lipase, BMSCs adipogenesis related proteins.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Rat osteoporosis model was successfully constructed 3 months after ovariectomy. Compared to the sham-surgery group, the femoral bone quality was significantly decreased, body mass was significantly increased, and adipogenic differentiation of BMSCs was significantly enhanced in the ovariectomy group (P < 0.05). These findings suggest that enhanced adipogenic differentiation of BMSCs is likely to be the important cause for increased adipogenesis in vivo and subsequent obesity-like change of body mass in rats after ovariectomy.