Gene expression in human osteoblastic cells from normal and heterotopic ossification

Heterotopic ossification (HO), a possible complication of head injury, develops in sites where it is not normally present like at the vicinity of joints. It may cause pain, decrease motion and in severe cases complete joint ankylosis requiring surgical intervention. To our knowledge, no study has been made to analyze HO at the molecular level on human biopsies, whereas its etiology remains to be determined. We defined a procedure of cell fractionation from bone resections and developed quantitative RT-PCR to compare genetic expression patterns between human normal osteoblasts and heterotopic ossification forming cells. This quantitative study demonstrated a specific and strong overexpression of osteocalcin mRNA in HO-isolated cells associated with a significant upregulation of type 1 collagen and osteonectin mRNA while histological analysis showed only small cellular variations. Our results give a first molecular characterization of heterotopic ossification and we conclude that such overexpressions in HO-isolated cells could be associated with the high activity of this pathological bone.