Kidney and Metabolic Bone Diseases Vol.32 No.4(4)

Theme Ectopic calcification on soft tissue: Vascular calcification and cardiac valvular calcification
Title Histochemical and ultrastructural evidences for vascular calcification -- Arterial calcification by defective FGF23/klotho signaling
Publish Date 2019/10
Author Tomoka Hasegawa Developmental Biology of Hard Tissue, Graduate School of Dental Medicine and Faculty of Dental Medicine, Hokkaido University
Author Tomomaya Yamamoto Department of Dentistry, Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Camp Asaka
Author Hiromi Hongo Developmental Biology of Hard Tissue, Graduate School of Dental Medicine and Faculty of Dental Medicine, Hokkaido University
Author Yukina Miyamoto Developmental Biology of Hard Tissue, Graduate School of Dental Medicine and Faculty of Dental Medicine, Hokkaido University
Author Norio Amizuka Developmental Biology of Hard Tissue, Graduate School of Dental Medicine and Faculty of Dental Medicine, Hokkaido University
[ Summary ] FGF23 secreted by osteocytes circulates to the proximal renal tubules and binds the FGFR1c/klotho receptor complex to regulate the serum concentration of inorganic phosphate (Pi). Therefore, the defective FGF23/klotho axis in kl/kl mice results in hypercalcemia and hyperphosphatemia, often exhibiting Möncheberg's vascular calcification in the aorta. The assumed mechanism of vascular calcification shown in kl/kl mice is that, in a defective circumstance of FGF23/klotho axis, vascular smooth muscle cells undergo a phenotypic differentiation into osteoblasts enough to induce matrix vesicle-mediated biological calcification. Under transmission electron microscopic observation, there were many matrix vesicle-like structures underneath osteoblasts, but unlike normal bone calcification, these matrix vesicle-like structures were often associated with extracellular fibrils of elastic laminar, rather than typeⅠ collagen fibrils. When kl/kl mice were given a low phosphate diet, vascular calcification was markedly-inhibited. However, kl/kl mice fed with a low phosphate diet showed not only the reduced level of serum Pi, but also the recovered gene expression of α klotho, both of which mechanisms may be involved in inhibited calcification of kl/kl aorta.
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