osteocyten.

1918 Amer. Naturalist 52 396 (caption) Osteocytes. Bone cells.

1928 Science 20 Jan. 71/1 Osteoblasts become secondarily involved in osteogenesis and thus are incorporated as osteocytes.

1943 Q. Jrnl. Exper. Physiol. 32 9 Superficially placed osteocytes.

1965 M. C. Hall Locomotor Syst.: Funct. Histol. vi. 87 Once it has formed the matrix around itself this cell, the osteoblast, becomes an inhabitant of its own secretions. Its function changes from a bone forming cell to a bone maintaining cell and it is then known as an osteocyte.

1989 B. Alberts et al. Molecular Biol. Cell (ed. 2) xvii. 991 Tiny channels, or canaliculi, radiate from each lacuna and contain cell processes from the resident osteocyte, enabling it to form gap junctions with adjacent osteocytes.

1967 Clin. Orthopaedics No. 54. 187/1 This phenomenon was an effect of the activity of the osteocytes which involved the production of proteolytic enzyme (osteocytic osteolysis).

1981 R. N. Hardy Endocrine Physiol. viii. 110 Calcitonin appears to work principally on the cells within bone and reduces both osteocytic and osteoclastic activity.

1996 Endocrinology 137 2033/2 Differentiated osteocytic cells derived from the interior of calvarial bone chips..were compared to osteoblastic cells from the surface.