Fig. 1

The effect of a low concentration of TNF-α on the proliferation/survival and osteogenic differentiation of MC3T3-E1 cells. a MC3T3-E1 cells were treated with or without 0.5 ng/ml TNF-α for 24 h or 48 h, and subjected to CCK-8 assay. No statistically significant difference in cell proliferation/survival was detected in MC3T3-E1 cells treated with 0.5 ng/ml TNF-α when compared with the control cells. b MC3T3-E1 cells were cultured in the osteogenic induction medium supplemented with or without 0.5 ng/ml TNF-α for 7d or 14d, and the ALP activity in these cells were determined. c, d MC3T3-E1 cells were cultured in the osteogenic induction medium supplemented with or without 0.5 ng/ml TNF-α for 24 h (c) or 48 h (d), and the mRNA levels of Runx2 and Bsp were determined using RT-PCR. e, f MC3T3-E1 cells were cultured in the osteogenic induction medium supplemented with or without 0.5 ng/ml TNF-α for 24 h (e) or 48 h (f), and the protein levels of RUNX2 and BSP were determined using western blot analysis. *, p < 0.05 vs. the 0 ng/ml group; **, p < 0.01 vs. the 0 ng/ml group