Wishlist:Osteocyte Gene Network

From WikiPathways

Osteocytes have been hard to study because they are buried in the bone. Osteocytes now appear to act as endocrine cells regulating phosphate and calcium levels. Osteocytes also regulate bone responses to mechanical loading throught the Wnt pathway. Osteocytes are now key targets for PTH and Prostaglandin signaling. We have built some model pathways from microarray analysis of primary osteocytes, and found they express high levels of muscle genes and neural genes that maybe related to their capacity to move within the canaliculi and lacunae homes of the osteocyte in bone. We will try to build and submit some model pathways representing the osteocyte and its gene expression patterns.