A study of osteoclasts on calvaria of normal and osteopetrotic (mi/mi) mice by vital staining with acridine orange.

A novel staining procedure for enumerating osteoclasts on neonatal mouse calvaria with the vital fluorescent dye acridine orange is described. It has the advantage over Barnicot's neutral-red method in that the nuclei and cytoplasm of the osteoclast are stained differentially. The osteopetrotic calvarium (mi/mi) has fewer multinucleate osteoclasts than its normal counterpart (mi/+) and they are differently distributed. The osteopetrotic calvarium has more mononucleate cells which stain like osteoclasts with acridine orange than the normal calvarium and these cells also are differently distributed. These mononuclear cells may be mononuclear osteoclasts or their precursors. These observations suggest that the defect resulting in this osteopetrosis lies with osteoclast differentiation.