Neural cell injury microenvironment induces neural differentiation of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1673-5374.2012.34.006

Abstract

Abstract:

This study aimed to investigate the neural differentiation of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUCMSCs) under the induction of injured neural cells. After in vitro isolation and culture, passage 5 hUCMSCs were used for experimentation. hUCMSCs were co-cultured with normal or Aβ_1-40-injured PC12 cells, PC12 cell supernatant or PC12 cell lysate in a Transwell co-culture system. Western blot analysis and flow cytometry results showed that choline acetyltransferase and microtubule-associated protein 2, a specific marker for neural cells, were expressed in hUCMSCs under various culture conditions, and highest expression was observed in the hUCMSCs co-cultured with injured PC12 cells. Choline acetyltransferase and microtubule-associated protein 2 were not expressed in hUCMSCs cultured alone (no treatment). Cell Counting Kit-8 assay results showed that hUCMSCs under co-culture conditions promoted the proliferation of injured PC12 cells. These findings suggest that the microenvironment during neural tissue injury can effectively induce neural cell differentiation of hUCMSCs. These differentiated hUCMSCs likely accelerate the repair of injured neural cells.

Key words: stem cell, umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell, co-culture, induction, differentiation, neural cell, microtubule-associated protein 2, injured cell, Transwell, neural regeneration, regeneration

Jin Zhou, Guoping Tian, Jinge Wang, Xiaoguang Luo, Siyang Zhang, Jianping Li, Li Li, Bing Xu, Feng Zhu, Xia Wang, Chunhong Jia, Weijin Zhao, Danyang Zhao, Aihua Xu. Neural cell injury microenvironment induces neural differentiation of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells[J]. Neural Regeneration Research, 2012, 7(34): 2689-2697.

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