Inhibition of and IL-6 in Osteoblast-Like Cell by Isoflavones Extracted from Sophorae fructus

Osteoporosis is recognized as one of the major hormonal deficiency diseases, especially in menopausal women and the elderly. When estrogen is reduced in the body, local factors such as IL-1 $\beta$ and IL-6, which are known to be related with bone resorption, are increased and promote osteoclastogenesis, which is responsible for bone resorption. In the present study, we investigated whether glucosidic isoflavones (Isocal, PIII) extracted from Sophorae fructus affect the proliferation of osteoblasts and prevent osteoclastogenesis in vitro by attenuating upstream cytokines such as IL-1$\beta$ and IL-6 in a human osteoblastic cell line (MG-63) and in a primary osteoblastic culture from SD rat femurs. Interestingly, IL-1$\beta$ and IL-6 mRNA were significantly suppressed in osteoblast-like cells treated with 17$\beta$-estradiol (E2) and PIII when compared to positive control (SDB), and this suppression was more effective at $10^{-8}$% than at the highest concentration of $10^{-4}$%. In addition, these were confirmed in protein levels using ELISA assay. In the cell line, the cells showed that E2 was the most effective in osteoblastic proliferation over the whole range of concentration ($10^{-4}%-10^{-12}$%), even though PIII also showed the second greatest effectiveness at $10^{-8}$%. Nitric oxide (NO) was significantly (p<0.05) upregulated in PIII and E2 over the concentration range $10^{-6}% to 10^{-8}$% when compared to SDB, without showing any dose dependency. In bone marrow primary culture, we found by TRAP assay that PIII effectively suppressed osteoclastogenesis next to E2 in comparison with SDB and culture media (control). In conclusion, these results suggest that local bone-resorbing cytokines can be regulated by PIII at lower concentrations and that, therefore, PIII may preferentially induce anti-osteoporosis response by attenuating osteoclastic differentiation and by upregulating NO.