Effects of two vitamins, two growth factors and dexamethasone on the proliferation of rat bone marrow stromal cells and osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells.

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects of the addition of five cytokines such as vitamin C, vitamin D, bone morphogenetic protein (BMP), transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) and dexamethasone (Dex) to Dulbecco's modified Eagle (DME) medium on the proliferation of Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats' bone marrow stromal cells and osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells by conducting 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. For bone marrow stromal cells, vitamin C was needed for doubling the cell viability. While BMP, TGF-beta and vitamin D maintained the growth rate given by vitamin C, Dex with beta-glycerophosphate (beta-GP) slightly reduced this cell proliferation rate. For MC3T3-E1 cells, the addition of four cytokines examined (vitamin C, vitamin D, TGF-beta and BMP) did not significantly increase the cell proliferation while Dex with vitamin C and beta-GP slightly enlarged the cell proliferation. It can be pointed out that vitamin C in DME medium is indispensable for rapid proliferation of bone marrow stromal cells that contain many osteo-progenitor cells but is not effective for quick increase of osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells. This finding appears to contribute to tissue engineering therapy to fix bone and periodontal defects in dentistry.