Regulation of osteoclastogenesis by transcriptional repressor Blimp1 via epigenetic regulation

破骨细胞是独特的骨吸收细胞，因此是治疗骨疾病如骨质疏松症的治疗靶点。我们发现，B淋巴细胞诱导成熟蛋白1（Blimp 1），一个转录抑制因子，是破骨细胞生成所必需的。虽然Blimp 1-null突变小鼠是胚胎致死的，但通过Cre/loxP系统在成年阶段敲除Blimp 1条件性基因不会促进小鼠的致死性不良反应，同时导致破骨细胞形成的显著抑制和骨量增加。因此，Blimp 1被认为是治疗骨质疏松症等骨骼疾病的治疗靶点（J Biol Chem 2012）。

Osteoclasts are unique bone resorbing cells, and thus are therapeutic targets to treat bone diseases such as osteoporosis. We found that B lymphocyte induced maturation protein 1 (Blimp1), a transcriptional repressor, was required for osteoclastogenesis. Although Blimp1-null mutant mice are embryonic lethal, Blimp1 conditional knockout at an adult stage by a Cre/loxP system did not promote lethal adverse effects in mice, while resulted in significant inhibition of osteoclast formation with increased bone mass. Thus, Blimp1 was considered as a therapeutic target to treat skeletal diseases such as osteoporosis (J Biol Chem 2012).