Bone Abstracts

Introduction: Segmental bone defects arising from traumatic injuries is a complicated problem with significant long term morbidity. Amputation was the preferred treatment historically. Limb salvage by the Ilizarov technique, vascularized fibular graft, and acute limb shortening was used in the last century with variable results. The problems were long, cumbersome and patient unfriendly treatment regimens, often involving multiple major and minor surgical procedures and numerou...

Periprosthetic osteolysis (PO) leading to aseptic loosening, is the most common cause of failure of total hip replacement (THR) in the mid- to long-term. Polyethylene (PE) particulates deriving from the wear of prosthesis liners are bioactive and are implicated in the initiation and progression of osteolysis. Evidence exists that cells of the osteoblast/osteocyte lineage respond to PE particles and contribute to the catabolic response by promoting osteoclastic bone resorption....

Analysis of osteocyte function often uses promoter elements of osteocyte-specific genes i.e. SOST or Dentin-matrix-protein 1 (Dmp1) to overexpress genes or the Cre-recombinase for conditional deletion studies. However, evidence suggests that these promoters may not be osteocyte-specific, which would be critical for subsequent data interpretation. To investigate the selectivity of supposedly osteocyte-specific in vivo models, we crossed the 8kb-Dmp1-Cre mice (i) with A...