Effects of thrombin on the growth, protein synthesis, attachment, clustering and alkaline phosphatase activity of cultured human periodontal ligament fibroblasts.

Previous studies have indicated that thrombin can activate pulp cells, including fibroblasts. Because pulp cells and periodontal ligament (PDL) fibroblasts can express thrombin receptor mRNA, the specific aim of this study was to determine whether thrombin can activate the growth, attachment, protein synthesis, alkaline phosphatase activities and cellular clustering of cultured human PDL fibroblasts. Thrombin can stimulate the growth of PDL fibroblasts in a dose dependent manner (as analyzed by MTT assay). At concentrations of 5 and 10 U/ml, thrombin increased the cell numbers to 141% and 153% greater than that of the control after 5 days of incubation, respectively. Thrombin (5-20 U/ml) also stimulated the protein synthesis rate (assayed by [3H]proline incorporation) to 1.88-2.13 fold that of the control. However, pretreatment of PDL fibroblasts with thrombin (1-20 U/ml) could not promote the attachment of PDL fibroblasts to type I collagen and fibronectin. Moreover, thrombin could induce clustering of PDL fibroblasts within a concentration range of 5-20 U/ml. However, thrombin (1-20 U/ml) exerted neither stimulatory nor inhibitory effect on cellular alkaline phosphatase activities. In conclusion, it appears that the presence of thrombin seems to have effects on PDL fibroblasts in terms of cell growth, protein synthesis and cell clustering. This suggests that thrombin might be important in the early healing process of periodontium following periodontal surgery.