Figure 4From: Controlled spatial and conformational display of immobilised bone morphogenetic protein-2 and osteopontin signalling motifs regulates osteoblast adhesion and differentiation in vitroTol scaffold containing the BMP2 knuckle peptide, KIPKASSVPTELSAISTLYL, activates Smad dependent signalling both when added exogenously to adherent cells and when immobilised on a surface. (a) Cells were cultured in multiwell plates, transfected with a SMAD-reporter construct and then treated with recombinant BMP2, exogenous Tol-BMP-ST or Tol-ST. Levels of luciferase were then assessed after eight hours. Both recombinant BMP2 (31 nM) and Tol-BMP-ST (112 nM) induced significant levels of luciferase activity compared to Tol alone. (b) Cells already transfected with the SMAD-reporter construct were plated onto gold coverslips displaying the scaffold proteins at the concentrations outlined in Table 1 or TEG alone. Luciferase activity was measured 12 hours later and contrasted with the same cells grown on tissue culture plastic and treated with soluble recombinant BMP-2 (100 ng/ml). Significant levels of SMAD signalling were only observed on the Tol-BMP-ST surface. Data representative of three independent experiments; results are mean ± SEM; ** P < 0.01. Significance was determined by ANOVA with Tukey post test.Back to article page