[Effects of retinoic acid on adhesion molecules expression and adhesive function in murine bone marrow stromal cell]

To explore the effect of retinoic acid (RA) on the expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) in murine bone marrow stromal cell (BMSC) and adhesive rate of human cord blood mononuclear cell (UCBMNC) to BMSC in vitro, the express ions of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 of murine BMSC were detected by flow cytometry and the binding capacity of UCBMNC to BMSC was tested by MTT assay after co-culturing with 0.1, 1.0 and 10.0 micro mol/L RA, respectively. The results showed that 1.0 and 10.0 micro mol/L RA increased the expression of ICAM-1 and the adhesive rate of U CBMNC to BMSC, however, RA did not induced the increase of expression of VCAM-1. It was positive correlation between the increments of ICAM-1 expression and the adhesive rate (r = 0.7883, P < 0.05). It is concluded that RA up-regulated ICAM-1 expression of BMSC and increased the adhesion of UCBMNC to BMSC in vitro. These may clarify the correlation between adhesion molecules on BMSC and homing of hematopoietic stem cells, and provide the experimental basis for RA to promote the homing of umbilical cord blood stem cell.