Active Vitamin D Insufficiency Accelerates Skeletal Aging via Oxidative Stress and p16-Mediated Senescence
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Vitamin D is essential for skeletal health, but its role in redox homeostasis and cellular senescence during aging in vivo is unclear. We therefore investigated whether active vitamin D insufficiency accelerates bone loss via oxidative stress and senescence pathways. Methods: Male wild-type (WT) and Cyp27b1 haploinsufficient mice (modeling vitamin D insufficiency) were treated with N-acetylcysteine (NAC) or 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 [1,25(OH)2D3]. Double-mutant p16-/-Cyp27b1+/- mice were used to assess the role of the tumor suppressor protein p16. Mice were maintained until 8 months of age in a specific pathogen-free facility. Outcomes included lifespan (n = variable per group, monitored daily); generation of oxidative stress (determined by serum malondialdehyde [MDA] levels via assay kit); generation of bone reactive oxygen species [ROS] (determined via flow cytometry), development of DNA damage (indicated by 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine [8-OHdG] and γ-H2A.X generation and determined via immunohistochemistry and Western blot); and senescence (assessed by generation of β-galactosidase [β-gal], p16, and senescence-associated secretory phenotype [SASP] cytokines as determined via staining, blot, and real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction). Additionally, bone microarchitecture was examined via micro-computed tomography and histomorphometry. Data from at least 5 mice per group were analyzed using unpaired Student’s t-test for two-group comparisons and two-way analysis of variance for multi-group comparisons, with significance at p < 0.05. Results: Compared with wild-type controls, Cyp27b1+/- mice showed a significantly shorter lifespan, higher oxidative stress, greater DNA damage, increased senescence markers, and lower trabecular bone volume (all p < 0.05). In Cyp27b1+/- mice, treatment with either N-acetylcysteine or 1,25(OH)2D3 significantly improved survival, reduced oxidative stress and DNA damage, attenuated senescence markers, and increased bone volume relative to untreated Cyp27b1+/- mice (p < 0.05 for all relevant comparisons; n = 5 per group). Genetic deletion of p16 in Cyp27b1+/-mice similarly increased bone volume and reduced senescence-associated readouts compared with Cyp27b1+/- controls (p < 0.05; n = 5). Conclusions: Active vitamin D insufficiency accelerates skeletal aging in vivo through a pathway involving reactive oxygen species-DNA damage-p16/senescence-associated secretory phenotype. Antioxidants, vitamin D repletion, or p16 inhibition rescued bone loss, highlighting redox-senescence axes as potential therapeutic targets for osteoporosis.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".