Figure 7

Prediction of the osteoblast development stage as the function of the culture conditions and duration through depicting the temporal gene expression data (Figure  2 ) into the profile of marker gene expression produced by Lian and Stein (modification of Figure 4-3 in [[32]]) . It is indicated that the monolayer specimens () stayed in a proliferation phase for the first 24 hours culture, and remained in matrix synthesis phase for the following 48 and 72 hours culture; whereas the small aggregates () were in the maturation phase for the first 24 and 48 hours culture and had jumped to a mineralization phase at 72 hours. Large aggregates () were in a mineralization phase at all three culture time points (24, 48 and 72 hours).