The 3rd Department of Research Institute of Surgery, Daping Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, State Key Laboratory of Trauma, Burns and Combined Injury, Chongqing, People's Republic of China.
PLoS One. 2012;7(5):e38243. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0038243. Epub 2012 May 31.
Protoplasmic astrocytes have been reported to exhibit neuroprotective effects on neurons, but there has been no direct evidence for a functional relationship between protoplasmic astrocytes and neural stem cells (NSCs). In this study, we examined neuronal differentiation of NSCs induced by protoplasmic astrocytes in a co-culture model. Protoplasmic astrocytes were isolated from new-born and NSCs from the E13-15 cortex of rats respectively. The differentiated cells labeled with neuron-specific marker β-tubulin III, were dramatically increased at 7 days in the co-culture condition. Blocking the effects of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) with an anti-BDNF antibody reduced the number of neurons differentiated from NSCs when co-cultured with protoplasmic astrocytes. In fact, the content of BDNF in the supernatant obtained from protoplasmic astrocytes and NSCs co-culture media was significantly greater than that from control media conditions. These results indicate that protoplasmic astrocytes promote neuronal differentiation of NSCs, which is driven, at least in part, by BDNF.
原浆型星形胶质细胞被报道对神经元具有神经保护作用，但原浆型星形胶质细胞与神经干细胞（NSC）之间是否存在功能关系尚无直接证据。在这项研究中，我们在共培养模型中检查了原浆型星形胶质细胞诱导的 NSC 神经元分化。原浆型星形胶质细胞分别从新生大鼠和 E13-15 皮层的 NSC 中分离出来。在共培养条件下，7 天时神经元特异性标记物 β-微管蛋白 III 标记的分化细胞数量显著增加。用抗脑源性神经营养因子（BDNF）抗体阻断 BDNF 的作用，当与原浆型星形胶质细胞共培养时，从 NSC 分化而来的神经元数量减少。事实上，从原浆型星形胶质细胞和 NSC 共培养培养基中获得的上清液中的 BDNF 含量明显高于对照培养基条件下的含量。这些结果表明，原浆型星形胶质细胞促进 NSC 的神经元分化，至少部分是由 BDNF 驱动的。
