Research Paper Volume 15, Issue 15 pp 7637—7654
TMT-based quantitative proteomic analysis revealed that FBLN2 and NPR3 are involved in the early osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)
- 1 Jiangxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Systems Biomedicine, Jiujiang University, Jiujiang 332005, China
- 2 Reproductive Medical Center, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan 430060, China
Received: April 17, 2023 Accepted: July 18, 2023 Published: August 4, 2023
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204931How to Cite
Copyright: © 2023 Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The delicate equilibrium between osteoblast and adipocyte differentiation of MSCs is highly regulated. We screened for early-stage osteogenesis- or adipogenesis-based MSCs protein expression profiles using TMT-based quantitative proteomic analysis to identify novel participating molecules. Protein annotation, hierarchical clustering, functional stratification, and protein-protein association assessments were performed. Moreover, two upregulated proteins, namely, FBLN2 and NPR3, were validated to participate in the osteogenic differentiation process of MSCs. After that, we independently downregulated FBLN2 and NPR3 over seven days of osteogenic differentiation, and we performed quantitative proteomics analysis to determine how different proteins were regulated in knockdown vs. control cells. Based on gene ontology (GO) and network analyses, FBLN2 deficiency induced functional alterations associated with biological regulation and stimulus-response, whereas NPR3 deficiency induced functional alterations related to cellular and metabolic processes, and so on. These findings suggested that proteomics remains a useful method for an in-depth study of the MSCs differentiation process. This will assist in comprehensively evaluating its role in osteoporosis and provide additional approaches for identifying as-yet-unidentified effector molecules.