What makes a bone cell different from a muscle cell?
1 Answer
Sep 27, 2016
Bone cell is osteocyte while muscle cell is called myocyte.
Explanation:
- Bones form infrastructure of skeletal system while muscles help in movement by contraction and relaxation.
- Young bone cells secrete organic matrix of bony tissue.
Myocytes do not secrete matrix. - Old bone cells are reabsorbed by osteoclast cells and new bone cells are generated from periosteum. Activity of osteoclasts increase with age.
Myocytes are also replaced after a decade or so, but the rate declines as old age approaches. - There are myosin-actin interaction inside myocyte to achieve contraction, which is not required in bone cell.
- Bone cells possess thin cytoplasmic branches, most myocytes are not like that (very short side branches are present in cardiac muscle cells).
- Individual myocytes undergo hypertrophy (increase in size), but osteocytes do not.