Accuracy and reproducibility of mouse cortical bone microporosity as quantified by desktop microcomputed tomography

Haniyeh Hemmatian, Michaël R Laurent, Samaneh Ghazanfari, Dirk Vanderschuer, Astrid D Bakker, Jenneke Klein-Nulend, Harry van Lenthe*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Bone's microporosity plays important roles in bone biology and bone mechanical quality. In this study, we explored the accuracy and reproducibility of nondestructive desktop mu CT for 3D visualization and subsequent morphometric analysis of mouse cortical bone microporosity including the vascular canal network and osteocyte lacunae. The accuracy of measurements was evaluated in five murine fibula using confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) in conjunction with Fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) staining as the reference method. The reproducibility of mu CT-derived cortical bone microstructural indices was examined in 10 fibulae of C57Bl/6J male mice at a nominal resolution of 700 nanometer. Three repeated measurements were made on different days. An excellent correlation between mu CT and CLSM was observed for both mean lacuna volume (r = 0.98, p = 0.002) and for mean lacuna orientation (r = 0.93, p = 0.02). Whereas the two techniques showed no significant differences for these parameters, the mean lacuna sphericity acquired from mu CT was significantly higher than CLSM (p = 0.01). Reproducibility was high, with precision errors (PE) of 1.57-4.69% for lacuna parameters, and of 1.01-9.45% for vascular canal parameters. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) showed a high reliability of the measurements, ranging from 0.998-1.000 for cortical parameters, 0.973-0.999 for vascular canal parameters and 0.755-0.991 for lacuna parameters. In conclusion, desktop mu CT is a valuable tool to quantify the 3D characteristics of bone vascular canals as well as lacunae which can be applied to intact murine bones with high accuracy and reproducibility. Thus, mu CT might be an important tool to improve our understanding of the physiological and biomechanical significance of these cannular and lacunar structure in cortical bone.

Original languageEnglish
Article number0182996
Number of pages16
JournalPLOS ONE
Volume12
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 Aug 2017

Keywords

  • OSTEOCYTE LACUNAR DENSITY
  • RADIATION MICRO-CT
  • CONFOCAL MICROSCOPY
  • MINERAL DENSITY
  • 3D ASSESSMENT
  • HUMAN FEMUR
  • IN-SITU
  • POROSITY
  • MORPHOLOGY
  • MICROSTRUCTURE

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