Planta Med 2008; 74 - PA111
DOI: 10.1055/s-0028-1084109

Effect of a multi-herb mixture, HT042 on the longitudinal bone growth in adolescent female rats

MY Kim 1, 2, YM Park 2, NR Pandit 1, N Jamarkattel 1, NT Kim 2, Z Zin 1, Y Bu 1, H Kim 1, 2
  • 1Dep.of Herbal Pharmacology, Coll. of Oriental Medicine, Kyung Hee Univ., Seoul 130–701, Korea
  • 2Korea Institute of Science and Technology for Eastern Medicine (KISTEM), Neumed Inc., Seoul 130–701, Korea

The present study was realised to investigate the effects of a multi-herb mixture, HT042 containing Dipsacus asper, Astragalus membranaceus and Acanthopanax senticosus on longitudinal bone growth in adolescent female Sprague-Dawley rats. The multi-herb mixture, HT042 was administered orally for 4 days in short-term and 4 weeks in long-term experiments at 100mg/kg twice a day. In short-term treatment, on the 3rd day, tetracycline was injected and fixed on the growth plate to allow for the measurement of bone longitudinal growth. Isolated tibias on the 5th day were fixed and sectioned longitudinally at a thickness of 40µm. The rate of longitudinal bone growth was assessed by measuring the length between the tetracycline fluorescent band fixed on 3rd day and the growth plate on 5th day. The height of the growth plate was also measured using cresyl violet staining. Expression of IGF-I and BMP-2 in the growth plate was investigated by immunohistochemistry. In long-term treatment, bone growth was measured by the body weight, tibia length, nose-tail length (N-T length) and nose-anus length (N-A length) once a week for 4 weeks. The height of growth plate of HT042 treated group showed significant growth. Expressions of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) in growth plate were significantly increased. The N-A length was significantly increased in HT042 long-term treated group. HT042 could be useful for increasing longitudinal bone growth rate and body length in adolescents and might be helpful to treat the short stature or growth failure.

Acknowledgements: Grant (PF 06203–00) of Plant Diversity Research Center of 21st Century Frontier Research Program (Ministry of Science and Technology, Korea), 2nd Stage of Brain Korea 21 Project (Ministry of Education, Korea).

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