Figure 1.

Identification of primary calvarial osteoblasts. The primary osteoblasts were isolated from calvaria of neonatal Sprague-Dawly rats. (a) The gene expression levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), osteocalcin (OCN), and Runx-2 were detected by RT-PCR after the cells were cultured in the absence or presence of recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) (300 ng/ml); GAPDH was used as a gel loading control. (b, c, d) The gene expression levels of ALP, OCN, and Runx-2 were analyzed by quantitative real-time RT-PCR. Compared with the cells without BMP-2 stimulation: ^∗p < 0.05, ^∗∗∗p < 0.001.