Comparison of the Proliferation and Differentiation Ability between Adult Rat Retinal Stem Cells and Cerebral Cortex-Derived Neural Stem Cells

Abstract

Recent studies have demonstrated that retinal stem cells (RSCs) and stem cells of the central nervous system both exhibited the abilities of self-renewal, proliferation and differentiation into multilineage. In the present study, we compared the proliferation and differentiation abilities between RSCs and cerebral corticex-derived neural stem cells (CNSCs) of adult rats. Stem cells isolated from pigmented ciliary margins of eyes and cerebral cortical tissues of adult rats were cultured in 96-well plates that contained serum-free medium with epidermal growth factor (EGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF). In contrast to RSCs, which stopped proliferating after the 8th week, the total cell count of neurospheres in CNSCs increased twofold at the 5th week and more than fourfold at the 10th week after in vitro culture. In contrast, RSCs stopped proliferating after 8 weeks of culture. After adding 2% fetal calf serum and withdrawing EGF and bFGF from the culture medium, the percentages of nestin-positive cells(20.6 ± 2.7%), microtubule-associated-protein-2-positive neurons (33.2 ± 3.9%) and glial-fibrillary-acidic-protein-positive glial cells(51.3 ± 6.2%) in the differentiated CNSCs were significantly higher than those in the differentiated RSCs (10.2 ± 1.9, 22.3 ± 1.3 and 44.6 ± 5.1%, respectively; p < 0.05). We also found that the combination of transforming growth factor β type III with retinoic acid played an important role in the induction of CNSCs to differentiate into opsin-positive cells. Our data demonstrated that CNSCs displayed a higher ability of proliferation and retinal lineage. This report also offers an alternative protocol of cell reproduction for producing retinal cells.

Desipramine Activated Bcl-2 Expression and Inhibited Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Apoptosis in Hippocampus-Derived Adult Neural Stem Cells

“…Adult Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats (8-week-old, 250 g) were anesthetized with intraperitoneal phenobarbital (Sigma Chemical Co., St. Louis, MO, USA) and the location of their brains was mapped. Then, the brain was surgically separated from the hippocampus region with the procedure described by Liu et al (16). In brief, tissues from the hippocampus of adult rats were dissociated and incubated in Hank's balanced salt solution (HBSS) containing collagenase (78 units/ mL) and hyaluronidase (38 units / mL) for 10 min at 37°C.…”

“…Tissues from the hippocampus region of adult SD rats were dissociated and cultured in the DMEM / F-12 serum-free medium with EGF and bFGF (16). After being cultured for 1 week, NSCs aggregated and formed spheroid-like bodies called neurospheres (Fig.…”

“…NSCs possess the utilizing potential to develop transplantation strategies and to screen the candidate agents for neurogenesis in neurodegenerative diseases (14). In order to elucidate the role of DP in neural progenitor proliferation, we cultured NSCs derived from the hippocampal tissues of adult rats as a model for the in vitro drug-effect test (16) and found that 2 µM DP can up-regulate Bcl-2 expression in DP-treated NSCs. In addition, previous studies have shown that major depression is accompanied by activation of the inflammatoryresponse system (17 -19).…”

Retinal stem cells and potential cell transplantation treatments

“…Our previous study compared the proliferation and differentiation ability of RSCs and NSCs, showing that the latter had a higher proliferating potential at the 10 th week, in contrast with RSCs, which showed interrupted proliferation at the 8 th week. 14 We also found that the combination of transforming growth factor beta type III with retinoic acid played an important role in the induction of NSCs to differentiate into opsin-positive cells. The cells integrated into the outer retinal layer will usually generate mature photoreceptor cells based on the cellular morphology, expression of photoreceptor markers, and functional recovery.…”

BV2 Enhanced the Neurotrophic Functions of Mesenchymal Stem Cells after Being Stimulated with Injured PC12

“…They either differentiate towards neurons with specific functions to substitute for the injured or dead neurons [1][2][3][4] or they secrete various neurotrophins to facilitate the recovery of the injured neurons [5][6][7] . However, so far there has been little convincing evidence to demonstrate that the remittance of nervous dysfunction at least partly results from the former and therefore research into the neurotrophic function of stem cells appears more important [8,9] .…”