Chemotaxis of human osteoblasts. Effects of osteotropic growth factors.

The in vitro chemotactic response of human osteoblasts was investigated towards the following growth factors: TGF-beta, PDGFs, FGFs and IGFs. Human osteoblasts grown from trabecular bone after enzymatic digestion were studied. TGF-beta stimulated the migration of human osteoblasts in a dose-dependent manner with a four-fold increase in migrated cells at 100 pg/ml, which was the optimum concentration. PDGF-BB also stimulated migration four-fold in a dose-dependent manner with a maximum response at 10 ng/ml. PDGF-AA, IGF-I and IGF-II stimulated migration two-fold at 100 ng/ml. The results show that TGF-beta and PDGF-BB are important regulators of human osteoblast migration, but other growth factors IGF-I, IGF-II and PDGF-AA may also stimulate osteoblast migration. Our results additionally suggest that TGF-beta and PDGF-BB may participate in the recruitment of osteoblasts during bone remodeling since both TGF-beta and PDGF-BB are found in bone matrix and could be released during osteoclastic bone resorption. They furthermore support a possible use of TGF-beta and PDGF-BB in growth factor-induced osteogenesis.