Cartilage V1

Cartilage, Volume 1: Structure, Function, and Biochemistry provides an in-depth treatment of cartilage structure, function, and biochemistry. Topics range from vertebrate and invertebrate cartilages to chondroblasts and chondrocytes, along with the use of transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy to examine cartilage. The collagens and cell kinetics of cartilage are also discussed. Comprised of 12 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the diversity of cartilage in vertebrates and invertebrates in terms of structure, function, and evolution. The principal common attributes of vertebrate cartilages as well as those specific parameters that usefully serve to distinguish between cartilaginous tissues at several phylogenetic levels are discussed. Function and level of function are considered, along with their correlations with the structural attributes of a specific cartilage. Subsequent chapters explore the chondroblasts and chondrocytes of cartilage, particularly how they arise and how they are maintained; the ultrastructure of cartilage; the biochemistry of cartilaginous extracellular matrices; and the kinetic and metabolic properties of cartilage cells. The final chapter analyzes the mechanisms of calcification of cartilage. This book will be of interest to biologists and biochemists.

I have been interested in and studying skeletal tissues since my undergraduate days in Australia in the 1960s. Those early studies on the development of secondary cartilage in embryonic birds, first published in 1967, have come full circle with the discovery of secondary cartilage in dinosaurs12. Bird watching really is flying reptile watching. Skeletal tissue development and evolution, the embryonic origins of skeletal tissues (especially those that arise from neural crest cells), and integrating development and evolution in what is now known as evo-devo have been my primary preoccupations over the past 50+ years.