Expression levels of selected candidate tenogenic and non-tenogenic marker genes (total of nine genes) based on microarray and QuantiGene® Plex 2.0 Assay.

<p>(A) The graphical representation of genes expression patterns in hMSCs in response to GDF5 induction; with their respective log₂ ratio based on microarray analysis. (B) Gene expression profiles independently validated using QuantiGene® Plex assay presented in log₂ ratio. Expression variation for each gene was visualized with standard deviation. Considering that <i>Scx</i> and <i>Mmp3</i> were derived from three biological samples compared to that of microarray which was derived from six bioloigical samples, the variation in the expression profiles was not unexpected. Whereas the <i>Pparγ</i>, <i>Sox9</i>, <i>Comp</i> and <i>Bglap</i> were all weakly expressed genes (the non-tenogenic marker genes), thus the differences detected may result from the detected limit and sensitivity of the different platforms, which subsequently affected interplatform reproducibility of differentially expressed genes. (C) Expression levels of the ECM related, candidate tenogenic and non-tenogenic marker genes based on microarray analysis. The graphical representation of genes (n = 16) displaying changes in expression patterns in hMSC in response to GDF5 induction with their respective log₂ ratio based on microarray analysis. The genes which showed at least fold change of 2 (log₂ ratio = 1, red dotted line) and fold change of less than 0.5 (log₂ ratio = -1, green dotted line) were regarded as significantly up- and down- regulated genes respectively.