Affiliations 

  • 1 UPM-MAKNA Laboratory of Cancer Research, Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 2 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM, Serdang, Malaysia
  • 3 UPM-MAKNA Laboratory of Cancer Research, Institute of Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. mohamed.suhaila@gmail.com
Calcif. Tissue Int., 2018 10;103(4):388-399.
PMID: 29808374 DOI: 10.1007/s00223-018-0433-1

Abstract

Osteoporosis (OP) and osteoarthritis (OA) are debilitating musculoskeletal diseases of the elderly. Ficus deltoidea (FD) or mistletoe fig, a medicinal plant, was pre-clinically evaluated against OP- and OA-related bone alterations, in postmenopausal OA rat model. Thirty twelfth-week-old female rats were divided into groups (n = 6). Four groups were bilateral ovariectomized (OVX) and OA-induced by intra-articular monosodium iodoacetate (MIA) injection into the right knee joints. The Sham control and OVX-OA non-treated groups were given deionized water. The three other OVX-OA groups were orally administered daily with FD extract (200, 400 mg/kg) or diclofenac (5 mg/kg) for 4 weeks. The rats' bones and blood were evaluated for protein and mRNA expressions of osteoporosis and inflammatory indicators, and micro-CT computed tomography for bone microstructure. The non-treated OVX-OA rats developed severe OP bone loss and bone microstructural damage in the subchondral and metaphyseal regions, supported by reduced serum bone formation markers (osteocalcin, osteoprotegerin) and increased bone resorption markers (RANKL and CTX-I). The FD extract significantly (p 

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.