The exploitation of Taiwan native plants in promoting bone growth and establishment of the system biology platform

With advanced age society's oncoming and human life expectancy, osteoporosis has been grown into the second most important global epidemic in the world. Osteoporosis and fractures can cause the life-threatening for the elderly. The development of the teenagers’ growth is also paid attention from parents in Taiwan. Both are connected with the bone growth. To exploit the health food or drugs that can promote bone healing or to promote bone growth has a high value. The Taiwan native plants are the precious and special natural assets. It provides not only academic needs, but also the effective application of development. Hence, we have established the human osteoblast-like cells (MG-63 cells), as experimental models to evaluate the Taiwan's native plants for promoting bone growth in this project and further evaluate by human primary osteoblast cells (HOb cells). In our preliminary results, we found the Taiwan's native plants - Uraria crinita Desvaux and Turpinia formosana Nakai didn’t have cytotoxic effects on MG-63 cells and show the potency. We investigated the effects of these two Taiwan's native plants on the ALP activity in MG-63 cells and found they significantly increased ALP activity to 105.50 ± 2.77 and 128.31 ± 0.72, respectively, when the concentration is 100 μM. We also examined the promoting effects on mineralization. We found U. crinita and T. formosana also stimulated the mineralization to 108.15 ± 1.90 and 111.20 ± 3.36, respectively. In HOb cells, U. crinita and T. formosana increased ALP activity to 105.89 ±0.77 and 126.27 ± 1.98, respectively. In the present study, we assessed the two active Taiwan's native plants for the exploitation in promoting bone growth and establishment of the system biology platform. The entire project goal will be carried out into three-year: The 1st year project: (1) To investigate the active ingredient of U. crinita. Using MG-63 cells as the active platform, the active fractions will be done as followed. After passing through the various chromatographic columns, the pure constituents will be isolated. The structures of isolated active constituents will be identified by various physical data and spectra. To further evaluate the active constituents by using human primary osteoblast cells (HOb). (2) To set up a prediction platform of gene and signal network for evaluating the promotion of osteoblast differentiation by using NCBI GEO database and GeneSpring ® software analysis. The 2nd year project: (1) To investigate the active fractions/constituents of U. crinita by using microarray data analysis and system biology. (2) According to the 1st year project’s strategies, the separation, purification, and structural analysis of the active components from T. formosana will be evaluated. The 3rd year project: (1) To investigate the active fractions/constituents of T. formosana by using microarray data analysis and system biology. (2) To verify and explore the new detected biomarkers for the promotion of osteoblast differentiation by using molecular and cell biology methods.