L-Carnitine Reduces Oxidative Stress and Promotes Cells Differentiation and Bone Matrix Proteins Expression in Human Osteoblast-Like Cells

Figure 2

L-Carnitine (L-C) decreases oxidative stress and increases anti oxidative defense in hOBs. (a): hOBs treated with or without 5 mM L-C for 6h were incubated in oxidative condition (500 mM H₂0₂) with Cell ROX® Orange Reagent. L-C induced a decrease, although not significant, in ROS fluorescence signal. ROS signal (red), nuclei (DAPI), and merge (magnification: 20X). The quantified signal was normalized for the total nuclei number. (b): 5mM L-C treatment was able to enhance antioxidant hOBs capacity even in presence of the pro-oxidant agent AAPH. Glutathione was used as antioxidant activity control (CAA assay: Each bar reported the CAA values vs untreated cells, represented by the 0 line; see materials and methods; <0.01, two-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post-test). (c): Representative Western blot and relevant quantification of SOD2 protein: after 6 and 24h, L-C induced a significant rise of SOD2 protein content. Data are the mean ± SD of six experiments performed with cells obtained from different donors. For Western blot and Immunofluorescence studies: Student’s t test: <0.001 vs control (ctrl).

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