Abstract
Mechanical stimuli play crucial roles in bone remodeling and resorption. Osteopontin (OPN), a marker for osteoblasts, is important in cell communication and matrix mineralization, and is known to function during mechanotransduction. Hypergravity is a convenient approach to forge mechanical stimuli on cells. It has positive effects on certain markers of osteoblast maturation, making it a possible strategy for bone tissue engineering. We investigated the effects of hypergravity on OPN expression and cell signaling in osteoblasts. Hypergravity treatment at 20 g for 24 hours upregulated OPN expression in MC3T3-E1 cells at the protein as well as mRNA level. Hypergravity promoted OPN expression by facilitating focal adhesion assembly, strengthening actin bundles, and increasing Runx2 expression. In the hypergravity-triggered OPN expression pathway, focal adhesion assembly-associated FAK phosphorylation was upstream of actin bundle assembly.
Highlights
Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper
Our findings showed that hypergravity may affect OPN expression via changes in focal adhesions, the cytoskeleton, and Runx2
Our result, which showed that hypergravity can increase OPN expression in osteoblasts, supported the results of previous studies using other cell types, where short periods (60 min) of hypergravity stimulation increased OPN expression [44]
Summary
We aimed to understand the mechanism by which hypergravity affects OPN expression in osteoblasts
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