Fig. 6

Overexpression of Klf4 partially recovered the odontoblastic differentiation ability of Mycn-deficient mDPCs. (A–D) Quantitative PCR results show that while Mycn deficiency led to downregulated Klf4, Sp7 and Dmp1 mRNA expression, forced expression of Klf4 in shMycn mDPCs upregulated Sp7 and Dmp1 mRNA expression levels compared with the shMycn group. (E) Representative western blots show upregulated expression of Dmp1 in shMycn mDPCs overexpressing Klf4 compared with the shMycn group. (F–I) Quantification of the western blots. The images used for western blotting quantitative analysis are included in Additional file 1: Fig. S3. (J–O’) Representative images of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and Alizarin red staining (ARS) staining show that overexpression of Klf4 partially rescued the odontoblastic differentiation and mineralization capacity of shMycn mDPCs. (P) Quantification of ALP activity shows significantly upregulated ALP activity in shMycn mDPCs overexpressing Klf4 compared with shMycn mDPCs. (Q) Quantification of ARS shows significantly upregulated ARS activity in shMycn mDPCs overexpressing Klf4 compared with shMycn mDPCs. *p < 0.05. ns not statistically significant