Figure 1.

Effects of the 3 peptides on bone marrow osteochondroprogenitor cell viability and COMP expression. (A) Viability assay. Cells were incubated for 24 hours in combination with the peptides, then viability was quantified by the MTT assay where the signal was normalized to the untreated cells (n = 1 donor by quadruplicate) and each peptide concentration was compared with the equivalent carrier concentration; bars represent SD. (B, C) Gene expression of COMP (n = 4 donors by triplicate) was measured by qPCR (quantitative polymerase chain reaction) after 24 hours on incubation with the peptides at 100 nM (B) or 100 nM peptides plus 0.1 ng/mL TGF-β3 (C). In both cases, all treated conditions were normalized to GAPDH, and relative to the dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) only condition; each donor is represented by a different symbol. Grand mean is represented.