Expression data from cultured macrophages and osteoclasts. Mus musculus

Osteoclastogenesis is induced by the stimulation of RANKL. In the early stage of osteoclast differentiation, the osteoclast progenitor cells are primed by M-CSF, following a tightly controlled genetic program where specific sets of genes are up-regulated by RANKL. Some of them, for instance, control differentiation, cell-cell fusion and bone resorption. We used microarrays to detail the global program of gene expression underlying osteoclastogenesis and identified various up-regulated genes during this process. Overall design: Macrophages and osteoclasts were cultured for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. We sought to obtain homogeneous populations of macrophages and osteoclasts in order to increase the temporal resolution of expression profiles. To that end, mouse bone marrow cells were cultured in the presence of M-CSF for three days and harvested as macrophage and oseteoclast common progenitor cells. Then common progenitor cells were further cultured in the presence of M-CSF alone for macrophages and M-CSF plus RANKL for osteoclasts, respectively.