Inflammatory arthritis not only results in painful swelling of affected joints, but also results in loss of bone material around the arthritic joints.
Osteoporosis is a disease characterized by decreased bone mass.
The pathological bone loss associated with both diseases results in increased bone fractures, deformation and collapse of joint surfaces, and difficulties in replacing diseased joints with implants and prostheses. Summary of Osteoclastic Bone Resorption. The acid pumped onto the bone dissolves the matrix by removing calcium from the structure. We are trying to develop therapeutic reagents that will specifically stop the osteoclast V-ATPases in order to prevent the pathological bone loss associated with inflammatory types of arthritis, such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, reactive arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and Lupus. We hope first to identify portions of the acid pump that stick out of the cell and thus would be accessible to reagents.