Bone Morphogenetic Protein-9 Induces Osteogenic Differentiation of Rat Dental Follicle Stem Cells in P38 and ERK1/2 MAPK Dependent Manner

Dental follicle stem cells are a group of cells possessing osteogenic, adipogenetic and neurogenic differentiations, but the specific mechanism underlying the multilineage differentiation remains still unclear. Great attention has been paid to bone morphogenetic protein-9 (BMP-9) due to its potent osteogenic activity. In the present study, rat dental follicle stem cells were isolated and purified, and cells of passage 3 underwent adenovirus mediated BMP-9 gene transfection to prepare dental follicle stem cells with stable BMP-9 expression. Detection of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and calcium deposition showed dental follicle stem cells transfected with BMP-9 gene could significantly promote the osteogenesis. In addition, SB203580 and PD98059 were employed to block the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38MAPK) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK1/2), respectively. Detection of ALP and calcium deposition revealed the BMP-9 induced osteogenic differentiation of dental follicle stem cells depended on MAPK signaling pathway.