Bone remodeling occurs throughout life and this process is carried out by osteoblasts and osteoclasts, which are responsible for the synthesis and resorption of bone, respectively. In order to maintain bone homeostasis, bone resorption and formation must be tightly regulated. An imbalance between osteoblast and osteoclast activity results therefore in skeletal abnormalities such as osteoporosis where imbalance is in favor of bone resorption.
Atlantic Bone Screen provides his Customers and Partners services for the non-clinical evaluation of their compounds. Atlantic Bone Screen benefits from its own animal facility to provide in-vivo assays to its Customers. Models are chosen and validated by our Scientific Team, our veterinary pathologist and with our expert consultants network. Either standard or tailor made models can be proposed for non tumoral diseases.
EXPERIMENTAL ANIMAL MODELS – BONE DISEASES
Thanks to its expertise in bone pathologies, Atlantic Bone Screen provides non-clinical animal models miming human bone pathologies by testing drug candidates and nutraceuticals.
Among these bone pathologies, post-menopausal osteoporosis is a pathology resulting from an imbalance between bone formation and bone resorption, favoring bone resorption and resulting in a loss of bone mass and structural disorders.
After ovariectomy of mice or rats, bone resorption rate will exceed bone formation rate and induce a bone loss and an osteoporotic phenotype. Post-ovariectomy lesional modifications are detected (on the rats) on proximal metaphysis of long bones. Bisphosphonates, generally indicated for osteoporosis treatment, does not give full satisfaction as far as they have disabling secondary effects; alternatives to this treatment are thus necessary and a lot of Companies are working on new molecules for new optimized treatments.
Reference compound used is for example Alendronate, an antiresorptive agent belonging to bisphosphonate familly widely used to treat osteoporosis since it increases bone mineral density, decreases bone turnover, and reduces the risk of vertebral fracture among women with osteoporosis.
MicroCT analyses, bone biomarkers (such as PiNP, CTX1) and histology (HE, Von Kossa, TRAP staining … for histomorphometic and histopathological analyses) are the main read-outs to evaluate the efficacy of the tested drug candidates and compare data from a group to another one.
EXPERIMENTAL MODELS – BONE REPAIR
Orthopedics surgeons are often confronted to bone substance loss in the case of bone fractures for example. In order to bridge it, they have at their disposal a large range of bone substitutes, from animal, human, mineral or synthetic origin. A bone substitute is a biomaterial or a tissue engineering product aiming at bridging and replace a bone loss and thus induce bone consolidation and its function restoration. Bone substitutes are thus primordial in bone reparation surgery. We can distinguish two types of substitutes:
- osteoconductive biomaterials, passive ones, they can receive bone regrowth by vascular and cellular invasion from a receptor tissue
- osteoinductive biomaterials, active ones, inducing a cell differentiation to synthesize mineralized bone matrix
As any biomaterials, bone substitutes have to be adapted to the origin tissue constraints and, in case of the bone tissue, bone implants should stimulate the bone response and have specific mechanical properties.
Atlantic Bone Screen proposes its expertise in bone reparation to evaluate different kind of bone substitutes.
More information on the page Biocompatibility evaluation >
TAILOR MADE ANIMAL MODELS
Atlantic Bone Screen develops tailor-made animal models under request in order to match its customers’ needs and constraints. For some animal models, Atlantic Bone Screen works with its experts’ network in order to propose his customers the largest range of models.
•Rodent expertise and other animals with approved partners – In-house veterinary consultant
For these studies, Atlantic Bone Screen can rely on highly qualified scientists and technicians and on a large range of analysis techniques for biomarker analysis, imaging analysis and histological services.
