Osteoclast Formation in Mouse Co-cultures

The murine co-culture assay is used to generate mature osteoclasts from bone marrow precursors by culturing them with osteoblasts that are stimulated with 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D3 and prostaglandin E2 . This assay is used particularly to analyse osteoblast–osteoclast interactions and to determine the cell type affected in knock-out or transgenic mice. This chapter describes also the isolation of bone marrow cells from mice and the methods to purify and replate mature osteoclasts.