Silymarin prevents iron overload induced bone loss by inhibiting oxidative stress in an ovariectomized animal model

Silibinin (SIL) has been used extensively for its hepatoprotective properties and antioxidant properties, including bone health. Iron overload can inhibit osteogenic proliferation and differentiation and promote bone loss. However, whether SIL can reverse the harmful effects of iron overload inovariectomized (OVX) rats and the mechanism is not clear. Therefore, this study intends to investigate the effect of SIL on bone mass and bone metabolism in iron overload rats and also explore the role of SIL on osteogenic differentiation of MC3T3-E1.RT-qPCR was used to measure the transcribe of target genes. Furthermore, alizarin red staining, alkaline phosphatase staining, immunofluorescence and CCK-8 assay were conducted to detect cell viability and target protein expression, osteogenic function. The OVX rat model with iron overload was set up to investigate bone reconstruction.Our results demonstrated that SIL promotes the proliferation and differentiation of osteoblasts, increases the ALP secretion and mineralization ability of osteoblasts, and enhances the transcribe and expression of target genes including OC, Runx-2, SOD2 and SIRT1 in an iron overload environment. In addition, it was confirmed that systemic SIL administration inhibits bone loss in OVX rats with iron overload and changes bone metabolism and oxidative stress status. Further study has shown that iron overload exerts its harmful function by accelerating bone turnover-mediated changes in higher bone metabolism to worsen osteoporosis. SIL can inhibit the unfriendly effects of iron overload, and by modifying bone metabolism and oxidative stress levels, the results contribute to clinical prevention and treatment of the progression of postmenopausal osteoporosis.