The mineralized osteocyte: a living fossil.

@article{Bell2008TheMO,
  title={The mineralized osteocyte: a living fossil.},
  author={L. Stephen Bell and Mike V Kayser and Chris G. Jones},
  journal={American journal of physical anthropology},
  year={2008},
  volume={137 4},
  pages={
          449-56
        }
}

• L. Stephen Bell, Mike V Kayser, Chris G. Jones
• Published 2008 in American journal of physical anthropology
• DOI:10.1002/ajpa.20886

We report here on an enigmatic and biologically mysterious event in which a single cell, the osteocyte, mineralizes in vivo and in this process the cell's organelles, cytoskeleton and membrane, are mineralized in a dying state. That the bony lacuna in which the lone osteocyte resides becomes infilled with mineral in vivo is not a new observation and was noted by early microscopists. This study has applied scanning and transmission electron microscopy to modern, archaeological, and fossil bone… CONTINUE READING

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