iScience (Oct 2023)

The selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor reboxetine promotes late-stage fracture healing in mice

  • Antonia Donat,
  • Shan Jiang,
  • Weixin Xie,
  • Paul Richard Knapstein,
  • Lilly-Charlotte Albertsen,
  • Judith Luisa Kokot,
  • Jan Sevecke,
  • Ruben Augustin,
  • Denise Jahn,
  • Timur Alexander Yorgan,
  • Karl-Heinz Frosch,
  • Serafeim Tsitsilonis,
  • Anke Baranowsky,
  • Johannes Keller

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 26, no. 10
p. 107761

Abstract

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Summary: Impaired fracture healing is of high clinical relevance, as up to 15% of patients with long-bone fractures display non-unions. Fracture patients also include individuals treated with selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRI). As SNRI were previously shown to negatively affect bone homeostasis, it remained unclear whether patients with SNRI are at risk of impaired bone healing. Here, we show that daily treatment with the SNRI reboxetine reduces trabecular bone mass in the spine but increases cortical thickness and osteoblast numbers in the femoral midshaft. Most importantly, reboxetine does not impair bone regeneration in a standardized murine fracture model, and even improves callus bridging and biomechanical stability at late healing stages. In sum, reboxetine affects bone remodeling in a site-specific manner. Treatment does not interfere with the early and intermediate stages of bone regeneration and improves healing outcomes of the late-stage fracture callus in mice.

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