title: The effect of synthetic α-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), α-tricalcium phosphate (α-TCP), and β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) are widely used as scaffold materials in bone tissue engineering. However, little is known about the effect of α-TCP alone on the osteogenic differentiation of the BMSCs. To this end, we synthesized α-TCP using a novel co-precipitation method. The synthetic α-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 μg/ml α-TCP, cells reached confluency after 7 days. Additionally, the MTT analysis showed that α-TCP at concentration of 10-20 μg/ml had good biocompatibility with BMSCs, showing no significant inhibition of rat BMSCs proliferation. Furthermore, the synthetic α-TCP (20 μg/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 α-TCP (20 μg/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 α-TCP alone likely promotes rat BMSCs osteogenic differentiation through up-regulating ALP, Col-I, Runx2, and SP7 gene expression.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Pathology, School of Stomatology, Jilin University Changchun 130021, China.
authors.forename: Jinzhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Pathology, School of Stomatology, Jilin University Changchun 130021, China.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: State Key laboratory Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, Jinlin University Changchun 130012, China.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ni
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Pathology, School of Stomatology, Jilin University Changchun 130021, China.
authors.forename: Chunyan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Pathology, School of Stomatology, Jilin University Changchun 130021, China.
authors.forename: Daowei
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Pathology, School of Stomatology, Jilin University Changchun 130021, China.
authors.forename: Hongchen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: State Key laboratory Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, Jinlin University Changchun 130012, China.
authors.forename: Zongtao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
keywords: Co-precipitation; bone mesenchymal stem cells; osteogenic differentiation; tissue engineering; α-tricalcium phosphate