The effect of synthetic ?-tricalcium phosphate on osteogenic differentiation of rat bone mesenchymal stem cells.

ABSTRACT: The reconstruction of large bone defects has been the focus in bone tissue engineering research. By acting as synthetic frameworks for cell growth and tissue formation, biomaterials can play a critical role in bone tissue engineering. Among various biomaterials, calcium phosphate based materials include hydroxyapatite (HA), ?-tricalcium phosphate (?-TCP), and ?-tricalcium phosphate (?-TCP) are widely used as scaffold materials in bone tissue engineering. However, little is known about the effect of ?-TCP alone on the osteogenic differentiation of the BMSCs. To this end, we synthesized ?-TCP using a novel co-precipitation method. The synthetic ?-TCP was then incubated with rat BMSCs under osteogenic inductive medium culture conditions, followed by the analysis of the mRNA levels of various osteogenesis-related genes, including ALP, Rux2, COL-I, and SP7, using a quantitative RT-PCR method. Following incubation of BMSCs with 20 ?g/ml ?-TCP, cells reached confluency after 7 days. Additionally, the MTT analysis showed that ?-TCP at concentration of 10-20 ?g/ml had good biocompatibility with BMSCs, showing no significant inhibition of rat BMSCs proliferation. Furthermore, the synthetic ?-TCP (20 ?g/ml), when incubated with rat BMSCs in the osteogenic culture medium, increased the mRNA levels of various osteogenesis-related genes, including ALP, Rux2, COL-I, and SP7. Finally, treatment of synthetic ?-TCP (20 ?g/ml) potentiated calcium nodule formations after incubation with rat BMSCs in osteogenic culture medium for 21 days, as compared with non-treated control. Taken together, the results in the present study suggested that ?-TCP alone likely promotes rat BMSCs osteogenic differentiation through up-regulating ALP, Col-I, Runx2, and SP7 gene expression.

SUBMITTER: Liu J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4626420 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature