NGF and BDNF expression drop off in neurally differentiated bone marrow stromal stem cells

Bone marrow stromal stem cells (BMSC) express two neurotrophins nerve growth factor (NGF) and brain derived growth factor (BDNF) constitutively and can be differentiated into neuronal-like cells and used to treat neural injuries and diseases. The neurotrophins are required for repair of neural tissues. However, it is not evident whether these cells supply the sufficient amounts of the functional growth factors following neuronal differentiation. This study investigates the expression of NGF, BDNF and their processing enzymes Prohormone convertases (PC) Furin, PC5 and PC6 by Real-time RT-PCR during neural differentiation of rat BMSC. The results showed that all inspected processing enzymes are expressed in the cells. The expression of NGF, BDNF and PC5 decreases following differentiation. In addition, BMSCs express Survivin, an anti-apoptotic gene; however, the differentiated cells reduce its expression similar to two neurotrophins, which could make them susceptible to apoptotic death.