Effect and mechanism of pyrroloquinoline quinone on anti-osteoporosis in Bmi-1 knockout mice-Anti-oxidant effect of pyrroloquinoline quinone.

Pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ), considered as an ROS scavenger,could protect mitochondrial activity from damage of oxidative stress. To determine the role of PQQ supplement in rescuing long bone osteoporosis in Bmi-1 mice. We fed Bmi-1 knockout mice a diet supplemented with PQQ (BKO+PQQ), BKO mice with normal diet (BKO) and wild type mice with normal diet (WT) as controls. We compared the differences of skeletal phenotype by means of imaging, histopathological and molecular biology methods in three groups of animals. Results showed that BKO+PQQ mice increased morphology of tibia, decreased X-ray transmittance, and increased bone density, thickness of cortical bone, width of growth plate and trabecular bone mass compared with BKO mice. Our study also investigated that, compared mice BKO, PCNA positive cells percentage of tibial growth plate areas significantly increased in BKO+PQQ mice, and TUNEL positive cells percentage was significantly decreased. To detect the effect of PQQ on osteoblast formation of tibiae. Our results showed, compared with BKO mice, osteogenic cell, osteoblast number areas, ALP, Col I and OCN positive areas significantly increased in tibia of BKO+PQQ mice. Further studies showed that supplemental PQQ played a role in anti-osteoporosis by up-regulating antioxidant capacity, inhibiting oxidative stress and reducing DNA damage, down-regulating CDKI proteins levels, and decreasing cell apoptosis. This study not only reveals the mechanism of PQQ supplementation in anti-osteoporosis, but also provides the experimental and theoretical basis for the clinical application of PQQ in osteoporosis.