Carbonic anhydrase II plays a major role in osteoclast differentiation and bone resorption by effecting the steady state intracellular pH and Ca2+.

Carbonic anhydrase II (CA II) expression in characteristic for the early stage of osteoclast differentiation. To study how CA II, which is crucial in proton generation in mature osteoclasts, influences the osteoclast differentiation process we performed rat bone marrow cultures. In this model, acetazolamide, a specific CA inhibitor, decreased the 1,25 (OH)2D3-induced formation of multinucleated tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP)-positive cells, in a dose-dependent manner. We then performed intracellular pH (pHi) and Ca2+ (Cai2+) measurements for cultured osteoclasts and noticed that addition of acetazolamide caused a rapid, transient increase of both parameters. The increase in pHi was dependent neither on the culture substrate nor on the extracellular pH (pHe) but the increase could be diminished by DIDS or by bicarbonate removal. Membrane-impermeable CA inhibitors (benzolamide and pd5000) did not have this effect. Addition of CA II antisense oligonucleotides into the cultures reduced the pHi increase significantly. CA II inhibition was also found to neutralize the intracellular vesicles at extracellular pH (pHe) of 7.4, but at less extent at pHe 7.0. In mouse calvaria cultures, bone resorption was inhibited dose dependently by acetazolamide at pHe 7.4 while inhibition was smaller at pHe 7.0. We conclude that CA II is essential not only in bone resorption but also in osteoclast differentiation. In both processes, however, the crucial role of CA II is at least partially due to the effect on the osteoclast pHi regulation.