RESUMO
Objective To approach the effect of cathepsin K(CK) on the onset of osteoporosis,and to study the influence of Bushen Tongluo Prescription(BTP,with the actions of invigorating the kidney and dredging the meridians) on osteoclast CK in ovariectomized rats.Methods Thirty female SD rats were divided into three groups randomly: sham-operation group,model group and BTP(12.46g.kg-1.d-1) group.The bilateral ovaries in rats of the model group and BTP group were removed.Four weeks later,BTP group were given gastric gavage of BTP.On the 6th and 12th weeks,we detected the general bone density of rats,examined CK expressionin osteoclasts with Western blot and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) methods.ResultsThe in-vitro cultured cells had the phenotype feature of mature osteoclasts.The bone mineral density of ovariectomized rats was negatively correlated with CK expression in time-effect manner.BTP down-regulated the CK protein and CK mRNA expression(P