Effects of NGF on inducing the rat embryonic neural stem cells derived from cortex and septal region to differentiate into neurons and AChE positive neurons in vitro
Objective: To study the effects of NGF on inducing the rat embryonic neural stem cells (NSCs) derived from cortex and septal region differentiating into neurons and AChE positive neurons in vitro. Methods: The NSCs were obtained from the rat fetal cortex and the septal region by the technique of serum-free culture respectively. The NSCs were differentiated in the medium with or without NGF for 14 days. The MAP-2 and the AChE positive neurons were detected by using immunofluorescence and histochemistry respectively. The image processing about the differentiation rates of MAP-2 positive neurons, the number of AChE positive neurons, the dimensions and perimeters of the neurons were employed. Then, the analysis of variance was made and Newman-Keuls test was used by STATA 7.0 statistical software. Results: The differentiation rates of the MAP-2 positive neurons in septal region NGF group and the cortex NGF group were superior to those in septal control and the cortex region groups. As far as dimensions of the MAP-2 positive neurons were concerned, there were significant differences among other groups except for between the septal region NGF group and the cortex NGF group. For the perimeters of MAP-2 positive neurons, there were significant differences among all groups. For the results about the number, dimension and perimeter of AChE positive neurons, septal region NGF group was the best, cortex NGF group the second, septal region control group the third and cortex control group was the worst. There were significant differences among all groups for above 3 indexes. Conclusions: NGF has the effects on inducing neural stem cells derived from rat fetal cortex and septal region to differentiate into neurons. The neural stem cells derived from septal region is more liable differentiate to AChE positive neurons than those which come from cortex; This regional specificity about NSCs differentiating into AChE positive neurons can be exchanged by the inducing of NGF.