Connexin43 and the Intercellular Signaling Network Regulating Skeletal Remodeling.
This review highlights recent developments into how intercellular communication through connexin43 facilitates bone modeling and remodeling.



Connexin43 is required for both skeletal development and maintenance, particularly in cortical bone, where it carries out multiple functions, including preventing osteoclastogenesis, restraining osteoprogenitor proliferation, promoting osteoblast differentiation, coordinating organized collagen matrix deposition, and maintaining osteocyte survival. Emerging data shows that connexin43 regulates both the exchange of small molecules among osteoblast lineage cells and the docking of signaling proteins to the gap junction, affecting the efficiency of signal transduction. Understanding how and what connexin43 communicates to coordinate tissue remodeling has therapeutic implications in bone. Altering the information shared by intercellular communication and/or targeting the recruitment of signaling machinery to the gap junction could be used to impact the skeletal homeostatic set point, either driving osteogenesis or inhibiting resorption.
Department of Orthopaedics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 100 Penn Street, Allied Health Building, Room 540E, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA.
Megan C
MC
Moorer
Department of Orthopaedics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 100 Penn Street, Allied Health Building, Room 540E, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA. jstains@som.umaryland.edu.
Joseph P
JP
Stains
D000818:Animals; D001846:Bone Development; D016723:Bone Remodeling; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000378:metabolism*; D002450:Cell Communication; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D019070:Cell Lineage; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D003094:Collagen / Q000378:metabolism; D018031:Connexin 43 / Q000378:metabolism*; D000071538:Cortical Bone / Q000378:metabolism; D005109:Extracellular Matrix / Q000378:metabolism; D017629:Gap Junctions / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D010006:Osteoblasts; D010011:Osteocytes; D010012:Osteogenesis; D013234:Stem Cells
D018031:Connexin 43; D003094:Collagen
Connexin; Intercellular communication; Osteoblast; Osteocyte; Signal transduction