Overexpression of QM induces cell differentiation and mineralization in MC3T3-E1

It has been reported that QM was highly expressed by cells isolated from epiphyseal cartilage as opposed to proliferative chondrocytes. In vitro investigation of the expression of QM revealed higher QM expression in nonmineralizing osteoblast and pericyte cultures as compared with mineralizing cultures. These evidences suggest that QM may play an essential role in cell differentiation before mineralization. However, our research results showed that QM overexpression in MC3T3-E1 enhanced cell differentiation and mineralization. In this study, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity and nodule mineralization were increased in MC3T3-E1 from QM overexpression cultures relative to normal expression QM cultures. RT-PCR revealed upregulation of the marker genes type I collagen, ALP, osteocalcin, osterix and BMP-2 and a slight decrease of a negative regulator osteopontin. These results suggest that the increasing of QM expression could stimulate osteoblast differentiation and mineralization in MC3T3-E1.