Department of Biological Sciences, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, 67260, USA.
Stem Cell Rev Rep. 2014 Oct;10(5):653-62. doi: 10.1007/s12015-014-9518-z.
Spinal cord injury or diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, can cause the loss of motor neurons and therefore results in the paralysis of muscles. Stem cells may improve functional recovery by promoting endogenous regeneration, or by directly replacing neurons. Effective directional migration of grafted neural cells to reconstruct functional connections is crucial in the process. Steady direct current electric fields (EFs) play an important role in the development of the central nervous system. A strong biological effect of EFs is the induction of directional cell migration. In this study, we investigated the guided migration of embryonic stem cell (ESC) derived presumptive motor neurons in an applied EF. The dissociated mouse ESC derived presumptive motor neurons or embryoid bodies were subjected to EFs stimulation and the cell migration was studied. We found that the migration of neural precursors from embryoid bodies was toward cathode pole of applied EFs. Single motor neurons migrated to the cathode of the EFs and reversal of EFs poles reversed their migration direction. The directedness and displacement of cathodal migration became more significant when the field strength was increased from 50 mV/mm to 100 mV/mm. EFs stimulation did not influence the cell migration velocity. Our work suggests that EFs may serve as a guidance cue to direct grafted cell migration in vivo.
脊髓损伤或疾病，如肌萎缩侧索硬化症，会导致运动神经元的丧失，从而导致肌肉瘫痪。干细胞可以通过促进内源性再生或直接替代神经元来改善功能恢复。移植神经细胞的有效定向迁移对于重建功能连接至关重要。稳定的直流电场（EF）在中枢神经系统的发育中起着重要作用。EF 的一个强大生物学效应是诱导细胞的定向迁移。在这项研究中，我们研究了胚胎干细胞（ESC）衍生的拟神经祖细胞在应用 EF 中的定向迁移。将分离的小鼠 ESC 衍生的拟神经祖细胞或类胚体置于 EF 刺激下，研究细胞迁移。我们发现，神经前体细胞从类胚体向施加的 EF 的阴极迁移。单个运动神经元迁移到 EF 的阴极，反转 EF 的极性会反转它们的迁移方向。当场强从 50 mV/mm 增加到 100 mV/mm 时，阴极迁移的定向性和位移变得更加显著。EF 刺激不会影响细胞迁移速度。我们的工作表明，EF 可能作为一种指导线索，在体内引导移植细胞的迁移。
