title: Building strong bones: molecular regulation of the osteoblast lineage.
abstract: The past 15 years have witnessed tremendous progress in the molecular understanding of osteoblasts, the main bone-forming cells in the vertebrate skeleton. In particular, all of the major developmental signals (including WNT and Notch signalling), along with an increasing number of transcription factors (such as RUNX2 and osterix), have been shown to regulate the differentiation and/or function of osteoblasts. As evidence indicates that osteoblasts may also regulate the behaviour of other cell types, a clear understanding of the molecular identity and regulation of osteoblasts is important beyond the field of bone biology.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Medicine and Developmental Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA. flong@wustl.edu
authors.forename: Fanxin
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Long
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001846:Bone Development; D019485:Bone Morphogenetic Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D019070:Cell Lineage; D050657:Core Binding Factor alpha Subunits / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D005346:Fibroblast Growth Factors / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D010006:Osteoblasts / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats; D051880:Receptors, Notch / Q000378:metabolism; D015398:Signal Transduction; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism; D051153:Wnt Proteins / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D019485:Bone Morphogenetic Proteins; D050657:Core Binding Factor alpha Subunits; D051880:Receptors, Notch; D014157:Transcription Factors; D051153:Wnt Proteins; D005346:Fibroblast Growth Factors