Table 1.

Major human skeletal disease with osteocyte dendrite defects

Disease	Dendrite defects	References
Osteoporosis	Decreased osteocyte connectivity, disrupted dendrite orientation, and higher dendrite tortuosity in osteoporosis patients Larger lacunar-canalicular porosity and increased effective canalicular size in ovariectomized (OVX, mimic postmenopausal osteoporosis) rats	[112, 116]
Osteoarthritis (OA)	Deformed osteocytes with fewer and disorganized dendrites in the subchondral bone of OA patients Decreased osteocyte viability and reduced dendrite connectivity in the femoral neck of OA patients	[112, 119, 121]
Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI)	Defective dendrites including reduced dendrite number and length in OI patients homologous of the SP7 R316C variant Defective dendritic processes in Bmp1 and Tll1 double knockout mice	[57••, 128]
Glucocorticoids	Degeneration of the lacunar-canalicular network, including loss of dendrites and rearrangement of cytoskeleton during in vitro and ex vivo culture	[136]