Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are studies that look at many common genetic variants in different individuals to identify potential associations with diseases. When new genetic associations are identified, researchers can use the information to develop better strategies for detecting, treating and preventing diseases. GWAS studies have so far identified many gene loci associated with bone diseases. One of the discovered loci is the single – nucleotide polymorphism rs7851693 in the intron of the FUBP3 gene, which is associated with the risk of bone fractures and osteoporosis. The role of the FUBP3 protein in bone metabolism is not yet known. In order to contribute to research, we tried to determine the relationship between the expression of the FUBP3 gene and bone cancer (osteosarcoma). As a part of the master’s thesis, we tried to determine whether the FUBP3 gene plays a role in bone formation using the technique of complete gene knockout during osteogenic differentiation of human osteosarcoma cells (HOS). The course of mineralization was compared in parallel with the course of mineralization in wild-type HOS cells. Using the Alizarin Red S staining method and the final quantitative evaluation, we found out that mineralization occurs faster in the wild-type cells, which suggests the FUBP3 gene has a certain role in bone formation. Faster mineralization was also visible under the microscope. In addition, we transfected human FUBP3 gene knocked out cells, with zfFUBP3 (zebrafish FUBP3) and empty plasmid, in order to check whether increased expression of this protein has an impact on osteogenic differentiation. We also evaluated the results quantitatively and found that zfFUBP3 has an impact in bone formation and we can conclude that it plays a similar role to human FUBP3. In addition to the described experiments, we quantitatively measured the expression of three more genes – collagen type I (COL1A1), osteocalcin (OC) and transcription factor II (RUNX2) – using the real-time PCR (qPCR) method. The results of the master's thesis show that the protein FUBP3 plays an important role in the mineralization of the osteosarcoma cell line HOS.
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