Insulin-like growth factor II and transforming growth factor beta 1 regulate insulin-like growth factor I secretion...

Bone cells in culture produce and respond to growth factors, suggesting that local as well as systemic factors regulate bone volume. Previous studies have shown that IGF-I is the major mitogen produced by mouse bone cells and that its production is regulated by systemic agents such as PTH and estrogen. Because IGF-II and transforming growth factor beta 1 have been shown, respectively, to increase and decrease MC3T3-E1 cell proliferation, we tested the hypothesis that these two growth factors modulate the production of IGF-I in this cell line. In order to eliminate artifacts owing to IGF binding proteins, conditioned media samples were pretreated with IGF-II before measurement of IGF-I by RIA. After 24 h treatment at a density of 2.5 x 10(4) cells/cm2, IGF-II (10 micrograms/l) induced a 2.2-fold increase compared with untreated control (9.5 +/- 1.5 vs 4.2 +/- 0.44 pg/micrograms protein, p less than 0.001), whereas transforming growth factor beta 1 (1 microgram/l) caused a 66% decrease in IGF-I production (1.5 +/- 0.3 vs 4.2 +/- 0.44 pg/micrograms protein, p less than 0.001). Both IGF-II and transforming growth factor beta 1 regulated IGF-I production in a dose-, time- and cell density-dependent manner. The lowest effective doses for IGF-II and transforming growth factor beta 1 were 1 and 0.01 microgram/l, respectively. These results support a role for IGF-II and transforming growth factor beta 1 as potent modulators of IGF-I secretion in mouse bone cells.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)