Differentiation of rat neural stem cells and its relationship with environment

To explore the differentiation fates of rat neural stem cells (NSCs) in different environmental conditions.

NSCs derived from 16-day-old rat embryo were proliferated in vitro and implanted into the brain of rats with intra-cerebral hemorrhage. At the same time some NSCs were co-cultured in vitro with Schwann cells derived from newborn rats. MAP-2, GFAP and GalC (which are the specific markers of neural cells, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes respectively), BrdU and beta-tubulin were detected by immunohistochemical and immunofluorescent methods.

BrdU positive cells that were implanted into the brain distributed around the hemorrhagic area. The majority of them were GFAP positive astrocytes while a few of them were beta-tubulin positive neural cells or GalC positive oligodendrocytes. After being co-cultured with Schwann cells in vitro, NSCs are predominately shown beta-tubulin and MAP-2 positive, and only a minority of them were GFAP or GalC positive.

The hemorrhagic environment in vivo induces NSCs to differentiate mainly into astrocytes while co-culture with Schwann cells in vitro induce the majority of NSCs to differentiate into neural cells.