1985 Volume 27 Issue 2 Pages 746-749
Osteocytes have been generally interpreted as cells in which osteoblasts with abundant organelles in relation to collagen synthesis were buried within the unmineralized bone matrix formed by osteoblasts themselves during the stage of bone matrix formation. Dudley et al. named the osteocyte immediately after impaction within the bone matrix as “osteoid osteocyte” and found their resemblances with formative osteoblast organelles. Some of the isolated osteocytes accompanying bone mineralization show a little decrease in the amount of organelles thereby, which were named “young osteocyte” by Baud, and Jande described them as “formati ve osteocyte” because unmineralized fibrillar structures were contained within pericellular zone of osteocyte lacuna in spite of mineralization of matrix around their lacuna. For the purpose of demonstrating such osteocytes and pericellular matrix on three dimensional views, by means of our modified method based on the osmium-dimethyl sulfoxide-osmium method (the ODO method) devised by Tanaka et al., we examined in detail with a high resolution scanning electron microscope.
