title: In vitro and in vivo assays for osteoclast apoptosis.
abstract: Mature osteoclasts, multinucleated giant cells responsible for bone resorption, are terminally differentiated cells with a short life span. Recently, we have demonstrated that osteoclast apoptosis is regulated by ERK activity and Bcl-2 family member Bim. In this paper, we summarize the methods we used to study osteoclast apoptosis in vitro and in vivo. Using adenovirus and retrovirus vectors, we were able to introduce foreign genes into osteoclasts and examine their effects on osteoclast survival in vitro. In addition, we established the modified methods for in situ hybridization and BrdU labeling of bone sections from mice to study osteoclast survival in vivo. The detailed methods described here could be useful for studying the biological process in bone.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Akiyama
authors.forename: Tsuyoshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miyazaki
authors.forename: Phillippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bouillet
authors.forename: Kozo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Strasser
authors.forename: Sakae
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tanaka