To the Bone

Our bodies are served by a double supply network – our blood carries important cells and chemicals to distant tissues, while our lymphatic system keeps fluids balanced, siphons off waste and helps immune cells slosh into place. The two systems complement each other, but in some tissues they’re difficult to spot and in bones, the lymphatic system has remained elusive. Here, using gentle pattens of lasers, light-sheet microscopy allows researchers to peek inside this mouse’s knee joint, and pinpoint the lymph vessels (highlighted in blue) in the surrounding bone (purple). The team find that certain types of stress cause lymphangiogenesis –a growth which expands the lymphatic system’s support for healing bones that's often dulled in old age. Researchers hope targeting the genes and proteins involved may help the lymph to continue guiding bone regeneration in older human limbs.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Video still from work by Lincoln Biswas, Junyu Chen and Jessica De Angelis, and colleagues
• Tissue and Tumor Microenvironments Group, MRC Human Immunology Unit, MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Cell, January 2023