University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center other research news

University researchers elucidated the role of osteocalcin, one of the most abundant proteins in bone, which is made by the osteoblast cells that lay down new bone. Relatively little is known about the molecular determinants of osteoblast activity.

Mice made deficient in osteocalcin, by stem cell deletion of two genes coding for the protein, have stronger and bigger bones than normal mice by six months of age, with cortical bone increased by 150 percent by nine months of age. A slight excess of osteoclast, or bone-breakdown cells, was also found in the mutants, the researchers reported in Nature. ...