Research Blog-Saravanan-27/09/2020

Bone regeneration following critical sized defects is a global concern and requires urgent attention. Osteoporosis, fractures, bone loss due to trauma and cancer requires external augmentation to fasten bone formation. Bones generally have the innate ability to heal on its own. But when it is beyond its potential- critical sized bone defects, external augmentation is essential. In the recent past, researchers are focused on harnessing the potential of flavonoids to enhance the bone formation after a critical assault to the bone architecutre. But, the bone forming ability is not as needed to ameliorate the clinical demand.

BRIC lab at Saveetha Dental college have a solution for this problem. The researchers have complexed a much needed mironutrient zinc to Rutin- a plant derived flavonoid and found it be more active than the uncomplexed countepart. The Rutin-Zinc complex was found to be cytofriendly and promoted osteoblast differentiation via activating molecular signalling that drives stem cells differentiation towards bone formaing cells. This prelimary work is found to be promising and requires an indepth investigation under in vivo enviroment. Zebrafish exposed to the prepared metal complex exhibited an enhanced deposition of calcium phosphate in its scale, an active site for bone remodelling. Molecular investigations probed the involvement of Smad7, Smurf1, and HDAC7 genes. This study warrants the possible use of rutin-Zn(II) as naïve agent or in combination with other bone scaffolding systems/materials for bone tissue engineering applications.

The results were published very recently in the journal Chemico-Biological Interactions. For more information on the research details click https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbi.2021.109674