Does methylation of NFATC1 and C-FOS genes are associated with post-menopausal osteoporosis?

Abstract

Genetic and epigenetic factors have an important role during the development of osteoporosis. RANK/RANKL pathway is important for the bone remodeling and NFATC1 and c-FOS are the downtargets of this pathway. Here, we report methylation status of NFATC1 and C-FOS genes in post and premenopausal cases. In this study 30 pre-menopausal and 35 post-menopausal cases were included. MS-HRM was used for identification of NFATC1 and C-FOS metyhylation. NFATC1 were methylated in 11 of the 35 post-menopausal women and C-FOS were methylated in 6 of the postmenopausal women (p >0.005). Here, we found statistically significant association between unmethylation of NFATC1 and post-menopausal status. This result explains the epigenetic regulation of osteoclasts during the menopausal transition and our results can be used for epigenetic explanation of post-menopausal osteoporosis for the first time in the literature. Although the limited number of studies in this field makes our results crucial. Therefore, our results showed great value of epigenetic profile of post-menopausal women.