title: Historically significant events in the discovery of RANK/RANKL/OPG.
abstract: After it was suggested 30 years ago that the osteoblast lineage controlled the formation of osteoclasts, methods were developed that established this to be the case, but the molecular controls were elusive. Over more than a decade much evidence was obtained for signaling mechanisms that regulated the production of a membrane - bound regulator of osteoclastogenesis, in the course of which intercellular communication in bone was revealed in its complexity. The discovery of regulation by tumor necrosis factor ligand and receptor families was made in the last few years of the twentieth century, leading since then to a new physiology of bone, and to exciting drug development.
authors.affiliation: T John Martin, Department of Medicine and St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research, University of Melbourne, Fitzroy 3065, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: T John
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Martin
keywords: Bone biology; Osteoclasts; Osteoprotegerin; Receptor activator of nuclear factor κB; Receptor activator of nuclear factor κB ligand