Bats are the only mammals capable of powered flight. Bats are also unusual among mammals because their wing bones bend during flight. Some bones bend to almost 90 degrees and do not fracture. However, little is known about how the materials that make up bat bones allow this unusual bending, or the genes that control the deposition and maintenance of this bone tissue. By studying the structure and genetic underpinnings of bat bones compared to terrestrial mammals, this work will show how bone cells work together to create this unusual bone. By building a bat-like bone matrix in a petri dish, it may be possible to get a bioprint of a synthetic material that can bend like bat bones without breaking. Workshops for pre-Kindergarten to high school students about how the bat got its wings have so far reached over 200 students in Northeastern Ohio and this outreach will be continued. Additionally, students around the world will benefit from a newly created educational website. Beyond these workshops, high school, undergraduate, and graduate students working as part of this project will receive interdisciplinary training in molecular, biomechanical, and nanostructural biological techniques.
By identifying the mechanisms required to create a resilient extracellular bone matrix in vivo and in vitro, this study is expected to expand our understanding of how bone performance is adjusted by constituent molecular processes and microstructure. We integrate RNA expression and mechanical performance in a flexible bone by undertaking structural and biomechanical analyses (nano-scale to whole bone), as well as in vivo and in vitro molecular assays of limb bone cells of volant and non-volant mammals. Specifically, this result could show how mammalian bone cells can synthesize a bat-like matrix in a 2D culture environment, and eventually allow the synthesis of a specialized 3D matrix in vivo. Overall this study will allow for multiple fields of research to understand and capitalize on what evolution selected as the key mechanisms needed to make an unusually flexible bone.
