RAT BONE MARROW STROMAL CELLS DIFFERENTIATE INTO ASTROCYTES AND NEURONS COCULTURED WITH ASTROCYTES

Jia YJ, Yang YJ, Song YZ

Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China

 

Objective: Bone marrow stromal cells (MSCs) are able to express gene products typical of neuron and glia after infused into brain. In this paper, we investigated the effects of direct coculture MSCs with astrocytes.

Method: MSCs from adult rats were labeled with bis-benmiadine for 24h, and cocultured with astrocytes for 21d. The positive percentages of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and neuron-specific enolase (NSE), 200-kilodalton neurofilament (NF) expression, were measured by immuno-cytochemistry ABC-cy3 staining by fluorescence microscope.  

Results: After cocultured for 1d to 3d, the positive percentages of GFAP, NSE and NF expression were <1%. For 7d, the positive percentages of GFAP expression was 8.6%±2.4%, and NSE, NF were 3.8%±2.5% and 4.3%±1.9%, respectively. For 14d, the positive percentages of GFAP expression was increased to 25.0%±9.1%, and NSE, NF were increased slightly, which 4.5%±1.3% and 5.7%±1.8%, respectively.  For 21d, GFAP expression was decreased to 22.9%±7.6%, and the positive percentages of NSE, NF were 5.5%±3.6% and 5.3%±2.8%, respectively.

Conclusion: The results suggest that MSCs may differentiate into astrocytes and neurons cocultured with astrocytes. It is useful vehicles for both cell and gene therapy for a variety of diseases of the central nervous system.

 

 
0900