Abstract:
Background Bone capillaries play important roles in the maintenance of bone homeostasis and the phenomenon of “angiogenesis-osteogenesis coupling” has become the focus of clinicians. Revealing the mutual regulation relationship between microvascular endothelial cells and osteoblasts will provide new ideas for the clinical treatment of bone-related diseases.
Objective To investigate the effect of microvascular endothelial cells bEnd.3 on proliferation and apoptosis of osteoblast MC3T3-E1 cells under coculture conditions.
Methods The MC3T3-E1/bEnd.3 coculture system was established using transwell chambers. The cells were divided into control group (MC3T3-E1 cells were cultured separately) and coculture groups (MC3T3-E1 cells and bEnd.3 cells were co-incubated). CCK-8 assay was used to detect the changes in cell viability of MC3T3-E1 in the two groups. PI single-staining flow cytometry was applied to detect the changes in cell cycle of the two groups in MC3T3-E1, and Annexin V-FITC/PI double-staining flow cytometry for the changes of apoptosis rate of MC3T3-E1 in two groups. Western blotting was used to detect the expression changes of proliferation and apoptosis related-proteins (PCNA, Bax and Cleaved Caspase-3) in two groups of MC3T3-E1.
Results Compared with MC3T3-E1 cells cultured alone, the viability of MC3T3-E1 cells in coculture group enhanced significantly (P < 0.05), the ratio of S phase cells and G2/M phase cells increased significantly (P < 0.01, P < 0.05 respectively), the expression level of PCNA increased (P < 0.01), while the rate of apoptosis decreased (P < 0.05), Bax and Cleaved Caspase-3 expression were down regulated (P < 0.05).
Conclusion Under the condition of coculture in transwell chamber, bEnd.3 cells can significantly promote the proliferation of MC3T3-E1 cells and inhibit its apoptosis.