{"doi":"10.17615/a4xa-f338","title":"Alfacalcidol enhances collagen quality in ovariectomized rat bones: VITAMIN D IMPROVES BONE COLLAGEN QUALITY","abstract":"The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of alfacalcidol (1α(OH)D3 : ALF) on bone collagen employing an ovariectomized rat model. Thirty-five 16-week-old female Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into five groups: SHAM (sham-operated + vehicle), OVX (ovariectomy + vehicle), and three ALF-treated groups, that is, ovariectomy + 0.022 µg/kg/day ALF, ovariectomy + 0.067 µg/kg/day ALF, and ovariectomy + 0.2 µg/kg/day ALF. After 12 weeks of treatment, tibiae were subjected to histological, biochemical and immunohistochemical analyses. Collagen matrices in OVX bone appeared as immature and poorly organized; however, with the ALF treatment, it was improved in a dose-dependent manner. Contents of collagen and pyridinoline cross-link were decreased in OVX compared with SHAM, but they increased to the level comparable to SHAM in ALF-treated groups. The total aldehyde, that is, a sum of free and those involved cross-links, in the highest dose of ALF was significantly higher than the rest of the groups (p < 0.05). In addition, the expression of lysyl oxidase was increased in the all ALF-treated groups compared with OVX (p < 0.05). In conclusion, ALF increases not only the amount of collagen but also enhances the maturation of collagen in ovariectomy-induced osteoporotic bones, which likely contributes to the improvement of bone quality.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":135782,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9635,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":526069,"name":"Hideaki NAGAOKA","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":593978,"name":"Takayuki Chida","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":441325,"name":"Shizuka Yamada","orcid":"0000-0001-5346-5627","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":329487,"name":"Masahiko Terajima","orcid":"0000-0002-1502-7930","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":417492,"name":"Yoshiaki Azuma","orcid":"0000-0002-9634-6676","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":229779,"name":"Mitsuo Yamauchi","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:16:35.237665Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}