Abstract
Alzheimer's diseases (AD) patients suffer from more serious bone loss than cognitively normal subjects at the same age. Type H blood vessels were tightly associated with bone homeostasis. However, few studies have concentrated on bone vascular alteration and its role in AD-related bone loss. In this study, APP/PS1 mice (4- and 8-month-old) and age-matched wild-type mice were used to assess the bone vascular alteration and its role in AD-related bone loss. Transmission electron microscopy, immunofluorescence staining and iGPS 1.0 software database were utilized to investigate the molecular mechanism. Mitochondrial division inhibitor (Mdivi-1) and GSK-3β inhibitor (LiCl) were used to rescue type H blood vessels injury and verify the molecular mechanism. Our results revealed that APP/PS1 mice exhibited more serious bone blood vessels injury and bone loss during ageing. The bone blood vessel injury, especially in type H blood vessels, was accompanied by impaired vascularized osteogenesis in APP/PS1 mice. Further exploration indicated that beta-amyloid (Aβ) promoted the apoptosis of vascular endothelial cells (ECs) and resulted in type H blood vessels injury. Mechanistically, Aβ-induced excessive mitochondrial fission was found to be essential for the apoptosis of ECs. GSK-3β was identified as a key regulatory target of Aβ-induced excessive mitochondrial fission and bone loss. The findings delineated that Aβ-induced excessive mitochondrial fission drives type H blood vessels injury, leading to aggravate bone loss in APP/PS1 mice and GSK-3β inhibitor emerges as a potential therapeutic strategy.