As the prevalence of osteoporosis is expected to increase over the next few decades, the development of novel therapeutic strategies to combat this disorder becomes clinically imperative. These efforts draw extensively from an expanding body of knowledge pertaining to the physiologic mechanisms of skeletal homeostasis. To this body of knowledge, we contribute that cells of hematopoietic lineage may play a crucial role in balancing osteoblastic bone formation against osteoclastic resorption. Specifically, our laboratory has previously demonstrated that megakaryocytes (MKs) can induce osteoblast (OB) proliferation in vitro, but do so only when direct cell-to-cell contact is permitted. To further investigate the nature of this interaction, we have effectively neutralized several adhesion molecules known to function in the analogous interaction of MKs with another cell type of mesenchymal origin-the fibroblast (FB). Our findings implicate the involvement of fibronectin/RGD-binding integrins including alpha3beta1 (VLA-3) and alpha5beta1 (VLA-5) as well as glycoprotein (gp) IIb (CD41), all of which are known to be expressed on MK membranes. Furthermore, we demonstrate that interleukin (IL)-3 can enhance MK-induced OB activation in vitro, as demonstrated in the MK-FB model system. Taken together, these results suggest that although their physiologic and clinical implications are very different, these two models of hematopoietic-mesenchymal cell activation are mechanistically analogous in several ways.