Figure 1. Osteogenic differentiation induces osteocyte specific gene expression.

(a) Osteogenic differentiation for either 15 or 17 days significantly enhanced E11 mRNA expression. (b) Protein expression was also elevated at 15 days in culture and confirmed by densitometry (p = 0.08, compared to day 0). Blot was cropped for clarity; full-length blot is presented in supplementary figure 1. All Western blots were run under the same experimental conditions. qPCR demonstrated significantly increased expression of (d) Dmp1, (e) Fgf23, (f) Sost, (g) Phex, and (h) Opg at 15 or 17 days in osteogenic conditions. (i) Rankl expression peaked at day 10. Values were normalized to day 10 for all assays except Rankl, which was normalized to day 0. At least three replicates were completed for each assay. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001