Isolation and Culture of Osteoblasts

This chapter describes the isolation, culture, and staining of primary osteoblasts. The key advantages of this assay are that it allows direct measurement of bone matrix deposition and mineralization, as well as yielding good quantities of osteoblasts at defined stages of differentiation for molecular and histological analysis. While the focus is on rodent and human osteoblasts, this chapter will also cover the culture of osteoblasts from less conventional animal species.