A comparative proteomics study on matrix vesicles of osteoblast-like Saos-2 and U2-OS cells

Matrix vesicles (MVs) play an important role in the initial stage of the process of bone mineralization, and are involved in multiple rare skeletal diseases with pathological mineralization or calcification. The aim of the study was to compare the proteomic profiling of osteoblast-like cells with and without mineralization ability (Saos-2 and U2-OS), and to identify novel mineralization-associated MV proteins. MVs were extracted using ExoQuick solution from mineralization-induced Saos-2 and U2-OS cells, and then were validated by transmission electron microscopy. A label-free quantitative proteomic method was used to compare the protein profiling of MVs from Saos-2 and U2-OS cells. Western-blots were used to confirm the expression of MVs proteins identified in proteomic studies. In our proteomic studies, we identified that 89 mineralization-related proteins were significantly up-regulated in Saos-2 MVs compared with U2-OS MVs. We further validated that two MVs proteins, protein kinase C α and ras-related protein Ral-A, were up-regulated in MVs of Saos-2 cells compared to those of U2-OS cells under mineralization-induction. Our findings suggest that protein kinase C α and ras-related protein Ral-A might be involved in bone mineralization as MVs components.