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The organic-inorganic relationships in bone matrix undergoing osteoclastic resorption

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Abstract

The organic-inorganic relationships in bone matrix undergoing osteoclastic resorption have been studied in rat tibial diaphyses using electron microscope techniques in an attempt to identify the steps of the resorption process. Results suggest that bone resorption occurs in two phases: the first, an extracellular phase, leads to bone matrix fragmentation and partial dissolution, and the second, an intracellular phase, to complete digestion of the breakdown products of the bone matrix. The first component of the bone matrix to be attacked by the osteoclast is the ground substance. This induces the release of the crystals lying between, and on, the collagen fibrils; any crystals lying within fibrils are released later, when the fibrils break up. As this stage proceeds, the collagen fibrils retain their normal intrinsic texture, but gradually loose their lateral aggregation, appearing as individual fibrils (some of them uncovered by crystals), mixed with fragments of fibrils and many free crystals. The loosened but otherwise structurally normal collagen fibrils, and their fragments, are strongly argyrophilic. Complete dissolution of the disaggregated fibrils occurs outside the cell, both in the resorption zone and in the initial portion of the channels of the ruffled border. The free crystals present in the resorption zone and those phagocytosed in cytoplasmic vacuoles are organic-inorganic structures, whose organic component (the crystal ghost) is, at least in part, of proteoglycan nature. Dissolution of inorganic material occurs within the cytoplasmic vacuoles of the osteoclasts. Results are viewed in relation to the process of bone resorption and, as far as crystal ghosts are concerned, to that of bone calcification. A tentative summary of the various steps involved in the mechanism of bone resorption is given.

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  1. Io Istituto di Anatomia Patologica, University of Rome, Policlinico Umberto Io, Viale Regina Elena 324, 00161, Rome, Italy

    E. Bonucci

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Bonucci, E. The organic-inorganic relationships in bone matrix undergoing osteoclastic resorption. Calc. Tis Res. 16, 13–36 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02008210

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