Congenic mice with low serum IGF-I have increased body fat, reduced bone mineral density, and an altered osteoblast differentiation program.

Abstract Targeted gene studies have demonstrated the importance of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) for osteoblast (OB) differentiation and the acquisition of peak bone mineral density (BMD). The skeletal response to allelic differences in IGF-I expression can also be measured in vivo, using congenic mice. We created a congenic strain with reduced (approximately 20%) circulating IGF-I (C3H.B6-6T [6T]) by backcrossing a small genomic region (30 cM) of Chromosome 6 (Chr6) from C3H/HeJ (C3H) onto a C57Bl/6J (B6) background. 6T female mice have lower serum IGF-I ( P P P = 0.001), reduced cortical thickness ( P P P P P P P