Effect of Urocortin on strength and microarchitecture of osteopenic rat femur

As yet there is no evidence of the potential antiosteoporotic effect of Urocortin-1 (UCN), a corticotropin releasing factor related peptide, in vivo. In this study, and for the first time, we investigated the effect of UCN in a rat osteopenia model. Sixty female Sprague–Dawley rats were divided into 5 groups: (1) sham-operated, (2) untreated ovariectomized (OVX) rats, (3) and (4) OVX animals treated for 5 weeks with daily subcutaneous low-dose UCN (3 μg/kg of BW) or high-dose UCN (30 μg/kg of BW) 8 weeks after ovariectomy, and (5) OVX rats treated with daily estrogen (0.2 mg/kg of BW p.o) 8 weeks after ovariectomy for 5 weeks (E). After sacrifice, the femurs were reserved for biomechanical, histomorphometric and ash testing. In the biomechanical test, the high-dose UCN rats showed significantly improved mechanical stiffness (341.6 N/mm) compared with the untreated OVX animals (275.9 N/mm). In the histomorphometric evaluation, the high-dose UCN rats demonstrated an improved trabecular microarchitecture especially and significantly at the distal femur (distal femur Tb.Ar = 41.4 % and N.Nd/mm² = 26.8, proximal femur Tb.Ar = 71.8 % and N.Nd/mm² = 28.7) compared with untreated OVX rats (distal femur Tb.Ar = 23.3 % and N.Nd/mm² = 11.7, proximal femur Tb.Ar = 60.2 % and N.Nd/mm² = 25.2). Our results show that short-term treatment with UCN seems to have a positive effect on the metaphyseal bone structure and strength of the femur in ovariectomized rats.