Abstract:

The regulatory mechanism of TGF-β on the rapid growth of antler was investigated by studying the effect of specific micro-molecule antagonist SB-431542 of transforming growth factor- β (TGF-β) on the cell proliferation of sika antler chondrocytes. The sika antler chondrocytes were isolated after cultured for 30 days, then the second generation cells were incubated with 0, 1, 3, 5, 8 and 10 μM of SB-431542, after 48 hours of culture, the MTT assay was used to examine the proliferation of antler chondrocytes and the SPSS software was used to analyze the difference of the results. The result showed that the proliferation activity of cells treated with SB-431542 was lower than that of the control group (P<0.05), among them, the proliferation activity of cells treated with SB-431542 at the concentration of 8μM and 10μM was significantly lower than that of the control (P<0.01), with the increased concentration of SB-431542, the inhibition to cell proliferation rate was more significant. In conclusion, these results indicated that TGF-β might play an important role to maintain the rapid proliferation of sika antler chondrocytes.