SEM and TEM study of the hierarchical structure of C57BL/6J and C3H/HeJ mice trabecular bone

Biomechanics of Osteoporosis: The Importance of Bone Resorption and Remodeling Processes

“…The basic building block of the bone material is a mineralized collagen fibril of between 50 and 200 nm diameter. The collagen fibrils are filled and coated by mineral crystallites (Rubin et al, 2004); the latter are mainly flat plates that are mostly distributed parallel to each other in a fibril, and parallel to the long axis of the collagen fibrils (Landis, 1996). These well organized structural features have been associated with various unique structural properties of bone.…”

Adhesion formation of primary human osteoblasts and the functional response of mesenchymal stem cells to 330 nm deep microgrooves

“…Each osteon is a cylinder consisting of multiple concentric lamellae of approximately 3-7 mm in thickness (Giraud-Guille 1988). Collagen fibres within each lamella are arranged into parallel bundles that lie obliquely relative to adjacent lamellae (Rubin et al 2004); in addition, collagen molecules aggregate into highly ordered fibrils, composed of three protein chains, wound together in a triple helix of approximately 300 nm in length (Wagner & Weiner 1992), which also present a banded pattern at the ultrastructural level composed of 69 nm repeat banding units (Brodsky & Persikov 2005;Bozec et al 2005).…”

Bone: A Composite Natural Material

“…TEM requires extremely thin samples (Goodhew & Humphreys, 2000). Transmission electron microscopy is used to image the nanostructure of bone, such as, collagen fibrils and apatite crystals and to analyze the size and shape of bone mineral particles (Fratzl et al, 2004;Rubin et al, 2004;Weiner & Traub, 1992;Weiner et al, 1999). TEM can be used in human (Fratzl et al, 2004;Weiner & Traub, 1992;Weiner et al, 1999) and in animal bone (Rubin et al, 2004;Weiner et al, 1999).…”

“…SEM is a powerful tool to characterize the superficial structure of bone. SEM can be used at the macroscopic scale, from the submicrostructure to the microstructure scale, for example to observe the trabeculae distribution (Rubin et al, 2004) or the lamellae arrangement (Fratzl et al, 2004;Weiner & Traub, 1992;Weiner et al, 1999). An example of a healthy mouse vertebrae imaged with scanning electron microscopy is presented in Figure 3c).…”

“…While in men, bone loss predominantly occurs by trabecular thinning and reduced bone formation, in women there is an earlier loss of connectivity between trabeculae and earlier cortical thinning (Seeman, 2007). The comparison of normal with osteoporotic human bone shows a decrease in the trabeculae thickness and a deficiency in the trabecular structure with breakage of trabeculae (Rubin et al, 2004).…”