Proteomic Analysis of Protein Expressed in Odontoblastic Differentiation of Bovine Dental Pulp Cells.

In response to injury, dental pulp cells differentiate into odontoblast-like cells to produce reparative dentin. To understand the mechanism of odontoblastic differentiation and to stimulate reparative dentin formation, we developed an in vitro culture system representing odontoblastic differentiation of bovine dental pulp cells and profiled the protein expression through proteomic analyses. Fractionation with which two-dimensional gel electrophoresis exhibited an analogous protein expression pattern between in vivo and in vivo pulp cells, but underlined differentially expressed proteins during the odontoblastic differentiation. Subsequent mass spectrometry and NH2-terminal amino acid sequence demonstrated degradation of vimentin into several species, up-regulation of connexin 43 and down-regulation of protein disulfide isomerase in the differentiating pulp cells and suggests the involvement of these proteins in odontoblastic differentiation.