Constitutive bone marrow adipocytes suppress local bone formation and support hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells

Methods: Whole distal tibial bones were collected from male control or BMAd-DTA mice at 24 weeks of age. Results: Using an optimized data analysis workflow, we mapped over 20 million sequence reads per sample to the mouse genome (UCSC mm10) and identified 22,600 transcripts in the whole distal tibial bones of control or BMAd-DTA mice using STAR with default parameters. We identified 841 genes that were significantly changed in BMAd-DTA mice; of these, 432 genes were up-regulated. Pathway analysis revealed that this gene set is enriched in ossification, extracellular matrix organization, and osteoblast differentiation pathways. Conclusion: The increased bone mass in BMAd-DTA mice appears to be secondary to enhanced bone formation, suggesting a local effect caused by depletion of BMAd. Gene profiling of whole distal tibial bones from control or BMAd-DTA mice fed an ad libitum diet for 24 weeks.