Osteoclast fusion and fission.

ABSTRACT: Osteoclasts are specialized multinucleated cells with the unique capacity to resorb bone. Despite insight into the various steps of the interaction of osteoclast precursors leading to osteoclast formation, surprisingly little is known about what happens with the multinucleated cell itself after it has been formed. Is fusion limited to the short period of its formation, or do osteoclasts have the capacity to change their size and number of nuclei at a later stage? To visualize these processes we analyzed osteoclasts generated in vitro with M-CSF and RANKL from mouse bone marrow and native osteoclasts isolated from rabbit bones by live cell microscopy. We show that osteoclasts fuse not only with mononuclear cells but also with other multinucleated cells. The most intriguing finding was fissi

SUBMITTER: Jansen ID 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3349023 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature