Networking is key for cells during bone formation.

Networking is key for cells during bone formation.A new study into the way bone cells organize during bone formation could open the door to a better understanding of diseases such as osteoporosis. The research, led by the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, used an interdisciplinary approach combining biology, medicine and physics to analyse the osteocyte lacuno-canalicular network (OLCN) in different bone types from mice and sheep. Reporting their results today in the New Journal of Physics, the team show there is a universal mechanism behind the way individual cells organised themselves into a large, interconnected network during bone formation and mineralization. more