Isoflavone-enriched whole soy milk powder stimulates osteoblast differentiation

Functional foods with high nutritive values and potential therapeutic potential is a prerequisite for today's ailing world. Soybeans exert beneficial effects on human health. It contains plentiful polyunsaturated fatty acids and dietary fibers along with several isoflavonoids having bioactivity for improving health. Recent studies have shown that soybean isoflavones can have a positive effect on bone growth. The current study was designed to observe any impact of isoflavone-enriched soy milk powder (I-WSM) on inducing osteogenic properties at cellular and molecular levels. Precisely, we have evaluated the effect of I-WSM on the bone differentiation process. Our results show that I-WSM has the ability to stimulate osteogenic properties in osteoblasts both at the initial and terminal stages of differentiation. Treatment of I-WSM on osteoblasts demonstrates the inductive effect on the expression of osteogenic transcriptional factors like Runx2 and Osterix. Moreover, I-WSM increased the expression of the extracellular matrix protein osteocalcin, required for the formation of scaffold for bone mineralization. The estrogen signaling pathway was utilized by I-WSM to induce osteogenic activity. Taken together, here we report the cellular and molecular events mediated by I-WSM to exert an osteogenic effect in osteoblasts, which will help to understand its mechanism of action and project it as a remedy for the bone-related disease. Taken together, I-WSM has the ability to exert the osteogenic effect in osteoblasts via the estrogen signaling pathway and thus might be projected as a remedy for a bone-related disease like osteoporosis.