Promotion of healing of bone defect (in vivo)
Collagen is a fundamental component for the bone to keep its flexibility and strength because it accounts for 90% of organic components of the bone and plays an important role for fastening hydroxyapatites (a compound of calcium and phosphoric acid). As we face an aging society, the problems of bone aging/disease became such as bone fracture and osteoporosis, etc become more serious, which possibly cause a bedridden state in elderly people. In this situation, the necessity of foods and medicines which are effective for preventing/improving those symptoms has increased. Thus, we studied the effect of oral ingestion of CTP-containing collagen on the healing process of bone defects.
Test for promotion of healing of bone defect
1) Methods
Female Wister model rats at 11 weeks age were chosen, and a bone defect was created on their tibiae by puncturing with a drill having diameter of 1 mm. These samples were administrated an aqueous solution containing 0 and 80 mg/kg of CTP per day for 3 weeks since the model preparation day. After above period, the tibiae of each model were removed and subjected to an image analysis by a high resolution Micro-CT for comparing status of new-bone formation and also histological study after applying HE stain.
2) Results
The images of the defected parts of the tibiae after 3 weeks taken by the high resolution Micro-CT are shown in Figure 1. In the "control" group, bone cavities on the tibiae were observed clearly and most of them were in the early process of healing. In contrast, advancement of woven bone formations which usually appeared in an early stage of closing a cavity was found in the "CTP" (80 mg/kg) group. The same results were observed in HE stain of those tissues, as the "control" group shown in Figure 2, and the "CTP" group shown in Figure 3.
Figure 1: Micro-CT images of tibiae of the model rats
Figure 2: Hematoxylin-Eosin stain of "control" group (3 weeks)
Figure 3: Hematoxylin-Eosin stain of "CTP" group (3 weeks)
3) Discussion
As a result of the above studies using bone defect model rats, we confirmed the effect on promotion of healing of bone defect by oral ingestion of CTP-containing collagen. Thus, we can expect that CTP-containing collagen will greatly contribute to prevent/ heal serious problems such as bone fracture and other diseases caused by bone aging in an aging society.
