Abstract: Objective To study the role of NR2F2 in murine pre-osteoblast proliferation. Methods Quantitative real-time PCR was used to measure the mRNA level, MTS assay was used to assess the cell proliferation rate, flow cytometry was used to figure out the cell cycle distribution, and ELISA-Brdu was used to check the rate of DNA synthesis. Results When murine pre-osteoblast MC3T3-E1 cell proliferation was accelerated, the expression level of NR2F2 remarkably increased to 4.57±0.30 (p<0.01) fold compared with that of the control. Over-expression of NR2F2 accelerated MC3T3-E1 cell proliferation (p<0.01), and the proportion of cells in S phase markedly increased to 2 fold compared with that of the control, and the proportion of cells in G2/M phase also went up (p<0.05). More Brdu was incorporated into NR2F2 over-expressing cells, indicating the increase of DNA replication rate (p<0.01). Conclusion NR2F2 accelerates murine pre-osteoblast MC3T3-E1 proliferation through increasing the proportion of cells in S phase.

Key words: Nr2f2, MC3T3-E1 cell, cell proliferation