DLX3 promotes bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell proliferation through H19/miR-675 axis

The underlying molecular mechanism of the increased bone mass phenotype in Tricho-dento-osseous (TDO) syndrome remains largely unknown. Our previous study has shown that the TDO point mutation c.533A>G, Q178R in DLX3 could increase bone density in a TDO patient and transgenic mice partially through delaying senescence in bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs). In the present study, we provided a new complementary explanation for TDO syndrome: the DLX3 (Q178R) mutation increased BMSCs proliferation through H19/miR-675 axis. We found that BMSCs derived from the TDO patient (TDO-BMSCs) had stronger proliferation ability than controls by clonogenic and CCK-8 assays. Next, experiments of overexpression and knockdown of wild-type DLX3 via lentiviruses in normal BMSCs confirmed the results by showing its negative role in cell proliferation. Through validated high-throughput data, we found that the DLX3 mutation reduced the expression of H19 and its coexpression product miR-675 in BMSCs. Function and rescue assays suggested that DLX3, long noncoding RNA H19, and miR-675 are negative factors in modulation of BMSCs proliferation as well as NOMO1 expression. The original higher proliferation rate and the expression of NOMO1 in TDO-BMSCs were suppressed after H19 restoration. Collectively, it indicates that DLX3 regulates BMSCs proliferation through H19/miR-675 axis. Moreover, the increased expression of NOMO1 and decreased H19/miR-675 expression in DLX3 (Q178R) transgenic mice, accompanying with accrual bone mass and density detected by micro-CT, further confirmed our hypothesis. In summary, we, for the first time, demonstrate that DLX3 mutation interferes with bone formation partially through H19/miR-675/NOMO1 axis in TDO syndrome.