Scanning electron microscopy of bone cells in culture

Embryonic and young rat bone cells have been growing in culture and examined in the scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Compared with cells fixed in situ and taken directly from the animal, the cultured osteoblastic cells were smoother, flatter and more extensive and showed tighter intercellular contacts. Some matrix is formed in culture and undergoes at least partial mineralization as judged by the accumulation of Ca and P measured by energy dispersive x-ray analysis. Findings concerning the morphology of the collagen arrangement were indecisive. Some superficial cells, free of surrounding matrix, resembled osteocytes in normal in vivo bone. This may indicate that a proportion of the extracellular matrix produced by the cultured cells failed to polymerise into recognizable bone matrix, and that osteocytic morphology is not dependent upon the physical characteristics of the bone matrix.