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. 2016 Mar 31;7(17):23056–23071. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.8521

Figure 7. BMAL1 knockout mice (KO) evidence compromised disc height and vertebral bone health.

Figure 7

A. Representative μCT scans of lumbar spine (L1-L5) of a wild type and a KO littermate (10 week). Left panels show a coronal cut-plane through 3D reconstructions of the full lumbar segments of a WT and BMAL1 KO animal, showing changes in DHI. The right panels show a representative 3D reconstruction of ROI chosen for the bone trabecular morphometric analysis of each vertebral body showing changes in trabecular bone. The ROI contour only the outer boundary of the trabecular bone, excluding the cortical bone. B., C. The average of three disc height measurements (ventral, center and dorsal) (B) and disc height index (DHI) (C) were significantly lower in BMAL1-KO mice. D.-H. BMAL1 KO animals showed significant decreases in trabecular bone volume (BV) and total volume (TV) (D), bone volume fraction (BV/TV) (E), trabecular number (Tb.N) (F), and trabecular thickness (Tb. Th) (G), and a significant increase in trabecular separation (Tb. Sp) (H). I. Connectivity density (Conn. dens) was unaffected in KO animals. Data is represented as mean ± SE. n = 4 animals/genotype, 5 lumber vertebrae were measured/animal, *p<0.05.