Bony Tissue Regeneration by Magnesium Ions and its Applications in Orthopaedics

Magnesium ions can affect many cellular functions including the transport of potassium and calcium ions, whilst it also modulates signal transduction, energy metabolism and cell proliferation. It was recently reported that the presence of magnesium in the bone system is beneficial to bone growth and play a key role in bone remodelling and skeletal development. Literatures have shown that the presence of magnesium ions is able to stimulate bone growth and bone healing by enhancing the osteoblast and osteoclast activities. Magnesium is found to be actively involved in the mineralization process to control both bone formation and resorption. Our recent study has demonstrated that the release of magnesium ions can stimulate the expression of ostegenic genes and proteins in-vitro as well as bone formation in-vivo, respectively. It reported that the released magnesium ions could up-regulate the expression of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), osteocalcin (OCN), osteopontin (OPN), Runx2 by 6 folds higher than that of the control in-vitro. In addition, the volume of newly formed bone in the treated sample was about 8 times higher. Furthermore, the potential applications of these findings in orthopaedics will also be discussed in this invited talk.