It has been proven that topical application of statins leads to better healing of bone defects, although the mechanism of therapeutic action has not yet been determined.
Chinese scientists from the Third Hospital of Beijing University performed a study to assess the local impact of symvastatin on healing bone defects, and evaluate the impact of symvastatin on mobilization, migration and homing mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) bone marrow and endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs ).
It was found that the topical application of simvastatin increases bone tissue formation by 51.8% after six weeks and 64.8% after 12 weeks compared with controls (polyglycolic acid). This information was confirmed by histological examination, computed tomography and X-ray examination.
Simvastatin increased migration ability of BMSCs and EPCs in vitro. When applied topically simvastatin by 127% increased the mobilization of EPCs in peripheral blood (confirmed by FACS analysis). In addition, significantly increased blood concentrations of osteogenic BMSCs, which was confirmed by Alizarin red staining.
Genetic labeling BMSCs with green fluorescent protein (GFP) has allowed for following the transplanted cells and showed that simvastatin implant attracts labeled BMSCs. In addition, simvastatin stimulated the expression of HIF-1α and BMP-2.
Thus, the results showed that the local implantation of simvastatin stimulates healing of the bone defect. The basis of this effect is increased expression of HIF-1α BMP-2, leading to the involvement of endogenous angiogenic and osteogenic stem cells to the area of the bone defect.
This material is presented in the following article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24016857
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