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Connexin43 and the Intercellular Signaling Network Regulating Skeletal Remodeling

  • Skeletal Development (P Trainor and K Svoboda, Section Editors)
  • Published:
Current Osteoporosis Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of the Review

This review highlights recent developments into how intercellular communication through connexin43 facilitates bone modeling and remodeling.

Recent Findings

Connexin43 is required for both skeletal development and maintenance, particularly in cortical bone, where it carries out multiple functions, including preventing osteoclastogenesis, restraining osteoprogenitor proliferation, promoting osteoblast differentiation, coordinating organized collagen matrix deposition, and maintaining osteocyte survival. Emerging data shows that connexin43 regulates both the exchange of small molecules among osteoblast lineage cells and the docking of signaling proteins to the gap junction, affecting the efficiency of signal transduction.

Summary

Understanding how and what connexin43 communicates to coordinate tissue remodeling has therapeutic implications in bone. Altering the information shared by intercellular communication and/or targeting the recruitment of signaling machinery to the gap junction could be used to impact the skeletal homeostatic set point, either driving osteogenesis or inhibiting resorption.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant, R01-AR063631 (JPS) from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute for Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. We thank Lynda Bonewald (Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis) for providing the EM image of the osteocyte lacunae-canalicular network.

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  1. Department of Orthopaedics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 100 Penn Street, Allied Health Building, Room 540E, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA

    Megan C. Moorer & Joseph P. Stains

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  1. Megan C. Moorer
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Correspondence to Joseph P. Stains.

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Moorer, M.C., Stains, J.P. Connexin43 and the Intercellular Signaling Network Regulating Skeletal Remodeling. Curr Osteoporos Rep 15, 24–31 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11914-017-0345-4

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