“…However, our experiments indicate that HERS cells in vitro express osteocalcin, thus leaving the possibility that the basement membrane disruption is caused by HERS cells when they start depositing the acellular cementum. Furthermore, it has been suggested that the basement membrane contains chemotactic proteins, deposited by the HERS cells, which serve to direct the migration of precementoblast cells (Owens, 1978;Slavkin et al, 1989;Thomas and Kollar, 1989;MacNeil and Thomas, 1993) or induce cementoblast differentiation (Paynter and Pudy, 1958;Slavkin et al, 1988). Recent studies suggest that the collagenous-like protein CAP isolated from cementum, and as demonstrated in this study is present in HERS cells both as a membrane-associated protein and as a secreted protein, possesses chemotactic activity and is capable of recruiting putative cementoblast precursors (McAllister et al, 1990;Pitaru et al, 1995;Metzger et al, 1998;Barkana et al, 2000).…”