The effect of stromal cell-derived factor 1 in the migration of neural stem cells

Neural stem cells (NSCs) have widely been used in the treatment of human neurological disorders as cell therapy via intracerebral or intraventricular infusion. However, the migration mechanism required for NSCs homing and recruitment remains to be elucidated. Recently, SDF-1/CXCR4 axis was shown to be responsible for in cell migration and differentiation during the neural development stage and involved in the pathophysiological process of neurological disorders. In this study, we investigated the effect of SDF-1 in migration of NSCs in vitro and in vivo. The expression of CXCR4 receptor was examined by immunocytochemistry and RT-PCR. The migratory ability of NSCs induced by SDF-1 was assessed by transwell chemotaxis assay. The traumatic brain injury rat model was well established, and the recruitment of NSCs and expression of SDF-1 were investigated in vivo. Our findings demonstrated that SDF-1, in vitro, significantly induced the migratory of NSCs in a dose-dependent manner. An overexpression of neural stem cell marker Nestin in the hippocampus was observed after TBI, and the expressions of SDF-1 surrounding the lesion areas were significantly increased. Our results suggested that the migration of NSCs was activated by chemotactic effect of SDF-1. It was also proved the relevance of SDF-1 in the migration of endogenous NSCs after brain injury. Taken together, these results demonstrated that SDF-1/CXCR4 axis may play crucial role in the migration of Nestin-positive cell after brain injury.