Profiling the transcriptome of the adult mouse skeleton: RNA-seq of osteocytes from tibiae, femora, humeri and calvariae

In this experiment we define the transcriptome of the adult mouse skeleton by performing total-RNA transcriptome-sequencing on osteocytes, the critical regulatory cells in bone. Osteocytes from 16 week-old male mice (n=8) were isolated for 4 bone types across the skeleton: the tibia, femur, humerus, and calvaria. All other soft tissues including marrow were removed from samples before sequencing.