Bone stem cells.

Osteoblasts are the skeletal cells responsible for synthesis, deposition, and mineralization of the extracellular matrix of bone. By mechanisms that are only beginning to be understood, stem and primitive osteoprogenitors and related mesenchymal precursors arise in the embryo and at least some appear to persist in the adult organism, where they contribute to replacement of osteoblasts in bone turnover and in fracture healing. In this paper, the nature of these cells, whether they constitute a stem cell pool or a committed progenitor pool, and aspects of their apparent plasticity are discussed. Current understanding of differential expression of osteoblast-associated genes during osteoprogenitor proliferation and differentiation to mature matrix synthesizing osteoblasts is summarized. Finally, evidence is discussed that supports the hypothesis that the mature osteoblast phenotype is heterogeneous with subpopulations of osteoblasts expressing only subsets of the known osteoblast markers, raising also the possibility of multiple parallel differentiation pathways and perhaps even different progenitor pools.