Substrate Stiffness Regulates the Proliferation and Apoptosis of Periodontal Ligament Cells through Integrin-Linked Kinase ILK

The hallmark of orthodontic tooth movement (OTM) is time-consuming during clinical treatments. The acceleration of OTM through modulating proliferation and apoptosis of periodontal ligament cells (PDLCs) possesses the potential application in clinical treatments. Here, we established an in vitro model with a graded increase in substrate stiffness to investigate the underlying mechanism of proliferation and apoptosis of PDLCs. The role of the integrin-linked kinase (ILK) in response to substrate stiffness was investigated by the depletion model of PDLCs. We found that the proliferation and apoptosis of PDLCs show a stiffness-dependent property with stiffer substrates favoring increased bias at the transcript level. Depleting integrin-linked kinase diluted the correlation between PDLCs behaviors and substrate stiffness. Our results suggest that ILK plays a significant role in modulating PDLC proliferation and apoptosis and can serve as a potential target for accelerating OTM.