Fig. 3

The effect of the lentivirus-mediated shRNA interference of TNFR2 on TNF-α-stimulated EphB4 expression and osteogenic differentiation. a MC3T3-E1 cells stably transduced with lentiviral particles were selected with puromycin and named as pHBLV-TNFR2siRNA1 cells, pHBLV-TNFR2siRNA2 cells, pHBLV-TNFR2siRNA3 cells and pHBLV-NC cells, respectively. The mRNA levels of Tnfr2 were determined in these cells, among which the pHBLV-TNFR2siRNA1 cells displayed the highest TNFR2 gene silencing efficiency and were selected to continue the following studies. b TNFR2 protein levels in pHBLV-TNFR2siRNA1 cells and pHBLV-NC cells. c, d mRNA levels of Ephb4, Runx2 and Bsp in pHBLV-TNFR2siRNA1 cells and pHBLV-NC cells cultured in the osteogenic induction medium supplemented with 0.5 ng/ml TNF-α for 24 h (c) or 48 h (d). e, f Protein levels of EphB4, RUNX2 and BSP in pHBLV-TNFR2siRNA1 cells and pHBLV-NC cells cultured in the osteogenic induction medium supplemented with 0.5 ng/ml TNF-α for 24 h (e) or 48 h (f). *, p < 0.05 vs. the pHBLV-NC group; **, p < 0.01 vs. the pHBLV-NC group