| First Author | Lewis DB | Year | 1993 |
| Journal | Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A | Volume | 90 |
| Issue | 24 | Pages | 11618-22 |
| PubMed ID | 8265598 | Mgi Jnum | J:107359 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:3620892 | Doi | 10.1073/pnas.90.24.11618 |
| Citation | Lewis DB, et al. (1993) Osteoporosis induced in mice by overproduction of interleukin 4. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 90(24):11618-22 |
| abstractText | Osteoporosis is a common disease in which loss of bone mass results in skeletal fragility. The development of therapies for this disorder has been hampered by the lack of a convenient animal model. Here we describe a disorder in bone homeostasis in transgenic mice that inappropriately express the cytokine interleukin 4 (IL-4) under the direction of the lymphocyte-specific proximal promoter for the lck gene. Bone disease in lck-IL-4 mice appeared to result from markedly decreased bone formation by osteoblasts, features strikingly similar to those observed in cases of severe low-turnover human involutional osteoporosis. By 2 months of age, female and male lck-IL-4 mice invariably developed severe osteoporosis of both cortical and trabecular bone. Osteoporosis was observed in two independently derived founder animals, indicating that this phenotype was directly mediated by the IL-4 transgene. |