Figure 5

Administration of neutralization antibodies for RANKL or Sema4D can prevent prolonged bone resorption of the maxillary alveolar bone of OVX mice. (a) Experimental scheme of administration of the neutralization antibody and µCT observation. T.Ext; teeth extractions. (b) The graph shows the time-dependent changes in the bone volumes of the teeth-extracted side of the alveolar bone of OVX mice administrated with anti-RANKL antibody (open circle) or PBS as control (closed circle), as described in Fig. 1a. Data are expressed as mean ± S.D. (n = 3). (c) The graph shows the time-dependent changes in the ratio of CT values of the maxillary alveolar bone of OVX mice as described in Fig. 1b. Open circles represent the mice administrated with anti-RANKL antibody and closed circles represent PBS as control (closed circle). The data shown in the graphs are representative of two independent experiments. ***P < 0.005; calculated using two-way ANOVA. (d) Experimental scheme of administration of the neutralization antibody and µCT observation. T.Ext; teeth extraction. (e and f) Ventral views (upper left images) and lateral views (lower images) of μCT-3D images of the maxillary bone, and the µCT images of extraction socket of the first molar (right images) at 12 weeks post-extraction of OVX mice. The images are the alveolar bone of OVX mice administrated with PBS as the control (e) and anti-Sema4D antibody (f). (g) The graphs show maxillary alveolar bone volumes at 12 weeks after teeth extractions of OVX mice administrated with anti-Sema4D antibodies. Controls are the volume of alveolar bone of mice that have had ovariectomy and tooth extraction but have not been administered antibodies. The mice were euthanized at 12 weeks following teeth extractions. The heads were removed and subjected to µCT analysis, and the BV were measured. The data shown in the graphs are representative of two independent experiments. **P < 0.01 (calculated using Student’s t-test).