Carboxyl-terminal parathyroid hormone fragments stimulate osteoclast-like cell formation and osteoclastic activity.

The controversy still exists about the biological activity of carboxyl (C)-terminal PTH fragments. The present study was performed to examine the effect of C-terminal PTH fragments on osteoclast-like cell formation and bone-resorbing activity. In contrast to human (h) PTH-(1-34) or hPTH-(1-84), any C-terminal fragments examined [hPTH-(35-84), hPTH-(53-84), and hPTH-(69-84)] did not affect cellular cAMP production and intracellular calcium in osteoblastic UMR-106 cells. Although hPTH-(1-84) caused an increase in cAMP production and intracellular calcium less effectively than hPTH-(1-34) in UMR-106 cells, the former caused a stimulation of osteoclast-like cell formation in osteoblast-containing mouse bone cell cultures more effectively than the latter. All of the C-terminal fragments significantly stimulated osteoclast-like cell formation, and their effectiveness seemed to depend on the amino acid length of the fragments. The conditioned medium from UMR-106 cells pretreated with C-terminal PTH as well as amino-terminal PTH significantly stimulated osteoclast-like cell formation from mouse hemopoietic blast cells supported by granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor. Moreover, all of the C-terminal fragments stimulated osteoclast-like cell formation from hemopoietic blast cells even in the absence of osteoblasts, and their effectiveness seemed to depend on the length of fragments. As for bone-resorbing activity by mature osteoclasts, all of the C-terminal fragments stimulated bone resorption in osteoblast-containing mouse bone cell cultures, whereas these fragments did not affect the bone-resorbing activity of isolated rabbit osteoclasts. The present study first indicates that C-terminal PTH fragments stimulate osteoclast-like cell formation as well as bone-resorbing activity by mature osteoclasts in the presence of osteoblasts and accelerate osteoclast-like cell formation from hemopoietic blast cells in the absence of osteoblasts.