The Ex Vivo Organ Culture of Bone and Cartilage

The ex vivo organ culture of bone provides many of the advantages of both the whole organism and isolated cell strategies. Moreover, it can deliver valuable insight into the network of processes fundamental to bone and cartilage biology and thus provide an invaluable tool in pursuit of understanding skeletal health and disease. Through maintaining the bone and/or cartilage cells in their native environment, this model system provides the investigator with a powerful experimental protocol to address specific facets of skeletal growth and development. In this chapter, we outline the basic protocols and possible readouts of organ culture models to replicate; (a) linear bone growth (murine metatarsal culture model), (b) articular cartilage and subchondral bone metabolism (murine femoral head culture model), (c) bone response to mechanical stimulation (bovine trabecular core culture model), and (d) bone resorption and formation (murine calvaria culture model).