Bone health is a critical aspect of overall well-being, yet millions suffer from diseases that weaken bones leading to pain, fractures, and decreased quality of life. While current treatments primarily focus on preventing further bone loss, a groundbreaking discovery promises not just to halt this deterioration but to actively promote bone growth. Enter PEPITEM, a natural peptide with the unique ability to stimulate the formation of new, stronger bone while simultaneously preventing bone breakdown. This dual-action approach could revolutionize how we treat common bone diseases like osteoporosis and arthritis, providing new hope for patients worldwide.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham, led by Professor Helen McGettrick, have made a significant advancement in bone health by exploring the therapeutic potential of a novel peptide known as PEPITEM. Their work, published in Cell Reports Medicine, reveals how PEPITEM could stimulate bone growth and help prevent bone loss, offering new hope for treating various bone-related conditions.
Professor McGettrick, along with her team including Dr. Jonathan Lewis, Dr. Amy Naylor, Dr. James Edwards and Kathryn Frost, focused on understanding how PEPITEM could enhance bone repair. As populations age, the need for effective treatments to combat bone degeneration, such as osteoporosis, becomes increasingly critical. This research provides a fresh perspective on managing bone health, presenting PEPITEM as a potential game-changer in the field.
The study found that PEPITEM could significantly boost the activity of osteoblasts cells responsible for forming new bone while simultaneously reducing the activity of osteoclasts, which break down bone tissue. This dual action is particularly important because it not only supports new bone formation but also helps prevent bone loss, a crucial combination for maintaining bone strength and health. Given that current treatments for bone diseases often involve either slowing bone loss or stimulating bone formation, PEPITEM’s ability to do both could represent a significant improvement over existing therapies.
To observe PEPITEM’s effects, the researchers used advanced modeling techniques, which showed that the peptide could increase bone density a key indicator of bone health. Bone density refers to the amount of bone mineral in bone tissue, which determines the strength and durability of bones. Professor McGettrick emphasized the importance of these results, stating, “Our study shows that PEPITEM has the potential to significantly improve bone repair and prevent bone loss, which could enhance the quality of life for patients with bone diseases.”
Beyond repair, PEPITEM may also serve as a preventive treatment, particularly for those at risk of significant bone density loss due to aging or chronic disease. Its ability to promote osteoblast activity while inhibiting osteoclasts makes it a promising option for maintaining bone health over time.
Looking to the future, the research team plans to conduct further studies to better understand PEPITEM’s long-term effects and to explore its potential in clinical settings. “The next step is to bring our findings into clinical practice,” said Professor McGettrick. “We are hopeful that PEPITEM will become a key element in bone health treatment in the near future.”
In conclusion, the development of PEPITEM as a therapeutic agent represents a significant advancement in the treatment of bone disorders. By supporting both bone formation and the prevention of bone loss, PEPITEM could play a vital role in managing bone health, offering new hope to those affected by bone diseases.
Journal Reference
Lewis JW, Frost K, Neag G, et al. “Therapeutic avenues in bone repair: Harnessing an anabolic osteopeptide, PEPITEM, to boost bone growth and prevent bone loss.” Cell Reports Medicine. 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101574
About the Authors
As an experimental biologist with over 18 years research experience, Prof Helen McGettrick has gained a recognised international reputation for her innovative and distinctive research in the fields of inflammation, vascular and stromal biology in health and disease, and particularly the use of innovative experimental approaches to further our understanding of clinically significant conditions. She leads the Inflammation, Vascular and Bone research group at the University of Birmingham. With her team, she has developed a portfolio of novel 3D multi-cellular, multi-layered in vitro models (co-cultures, organoids, organ/tissue-on-chip) and combines these with ex vivo patient sample analysis, preclinical models of disease and big-data to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underpinning inflammation and tissue repair, with the view of translating these findings for patient benefit. Her team are currently seeking to expand our understanding of physiological resilience to stress events (e.g., inflammation, age, surgery, disease, obesity) over the life-course and develop innovative biomarkers and/or therapeutics to tackle “stress event” induced frailty within the population.
Jonathan Lewis is a Post Doctoral researcher based at the University of Birmingham, UK. He holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, exploring bone in healthy and disease states and in response to therapeutics, supervised by Professor Helen McGettrick, Dr James Edwards and Dr Amy Naylor. His PhD was funded by the Medical Research Council Versus Arthritis Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research (CMAR). Jonathan is currently exploring the changes in multiple human systems (e.g. immune, muscle and adipose) during ageing and in response to stressor events, alongside investigating bone homeostasis through novel organoid models.
Amy Naylor is an Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, UK. She completed her Ph.D in bone development at the University of Newcastle, UK and has devoted her research since to studying bone formation during inflammation and across the life course. The importance of this work has been recognised in the form of two personal fellowships from the charity Versus Arthritis. With funding from the NC3Rs and the EPSRC, Amy has made development of in vitro bone organoid models a research priority and she is committed to dissemination and collaboration with other research groups to increase uptake of this methodology.
James Edwards leads the Ageing and Regeneration research group at the University of Oxford. This work reveals causes of ageing-related decline across multiple tissues, and explores novel approaches to better treat the consequences of ageing.
Building on a background in musculoskeletal sciences and bone biology, James has focused his research upon the inextricable link between ageing and longevity factors, and the onset and progression of ageing-related disorders, including bone loss and arthritic disease. This has included the study of sirtuin biology in musculoskeletal tissues and how the acetylation status of key intracellular proteins fine tunes normal cell biology and function with increasing age, how the cellular recycling process of autophagy declines in ageing cartilage and can be activated to protect against arthritic disease, and how novel degradable alloys can improve fracture healing and bone repair. This work has shown how ageing mechanism can be targeted with naturally occurring products such as polyamines and polyphenols, exert direct and significant effects upon ageing mechanisms to preserve normal cell biology and tissue structure and may protect against the onset of disease with increasing age.
Recent work has developed an integrated cellular, genomic and proteomic platform for the assessment of novel and repurposed drugs and revealed new indications for well-tolerated and established classes of agents in ageing-related conditions such as cardiovascular disease.
Kathryn Frost: I am a final year PhD student studying the effects of novel therapeutics for age-related bone disorders at the Centre for Translational Inflammation Research, University of Birmingham. My research career started in neuroscience at the University of Nottingham, where I investigated age-related changes of the spinal dorsal horn during postnatal development. This fuelled my interest in age related changes in complex biological systems and led to my current project focusing on alleviating bone loss and promoting bone remodelling in disease. Upon completion of my PhD, I will be moving to Universidade do Porto where I will combine my interests and investigate the interactions of the nervous system and skeletal system.
