Bone Abstracts

Mesenchymal cells alter and retain their phenotype during skeletal development through activation or suppression of signaling pathways. For example, we have shown that Wnt3a only stimulates osteoblast differentiation in cells with intrinsic osteogenic potential (e.g., MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblasts) and not in fat cell precursors or fibroblasts (respectively, 3T3-L1 pre-adipocytes or NIH3T3 fibroblasts). Wnt3a promotes osteogenesis in part by stimulating autocrine production of the ...