Erythropoietin (EPO) is reported to promote osteogenesis and inhibit adipogenesis of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) through inhibiting PPAR gamma, while insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) is able to enhance osteogenesis via upregulating transcriptional coactivator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ). The different targets of EPO and IGF1 suggested their potential synergism to enhance osteogenesis. In this study, we aimed to determine the potential synergism of EPO and IGF1 and its efficacy on MSC differentiation. Rat adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADSCs) were separately treated with EPO, IGF1 and EPO/IGF1. It was observed that the co-treatment using EPO and IGF1 was able to potently promote the osteogenic differentiation of rat ADSCs compared with EPO or IGF1 alone, which offered a promising effective option to strengthen bone tissue regeneration for bone defects. Further, we demonstrated that the enhanced osteogenic differentiation by EPO and IGF1 co-treatment was almost counteracted by activating PPAR gamma through PPAR gamma agonist, RSG, and blocking TAZ through TAZ silencing RNA, siTAZ. Thus, it could be concluded that EPO and IGF1 possessed a potent synergism in promoting osteogenic differentiation, and the synergism was mainly attributed to co-regulation of different osteogenic regulators PPAR gamma and TAZ, which were targeted genes of EPO and IGF1 respectively. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc.