Translational Endocrinology of Bone

The use of model organisms together with the power of genetics has profoundly affected our understanding of the physiology of one organ, the skeleton, in two distinct but complementary ways. First, the use of mouse genetics guided by clinical observations has revealed, besides the classical regulation by the parathyroid hormone and sex steroid hormones, totally unanticipated ways of regulating bone mass. These include the influence of adipocytes, pancreatic b-cells, and entero-chromaffin cells of the duodenum on the central and peripheral nervous systems. A second major advance of the last decade has been to show that bone has many more functions than the one classically ascribed to it and described in other textbooks. These include but are not limited to the regulation of glucose metabolism, fertility, and phosphate homeostasis... This will be the first translational reference to focus on these major conceptual advances in bone biology and their development in the clinic. Several advances have already been translated into therapies, and others are being tested for diseases as different as osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, and hypo-fertility.