Interplay between FGF2 and BMP controls the self-renewal, dormancy and differentiation of rat neural stem cells.

ABSTRACT: Mouse and human central nervous system progenitor cells can be propagated extensively ex vivo as stem cell lines. For the rat, however, in vitro expansion has proven to be problematic owing to proliferation arrest and differentiation. Here, we analyse the establishment, in adherent culture, of undifferentiated tripotent neural stem (NS) cell lines derived from rat foetal brain and spinal cord. Rat NS cells invariably undergo growth arrest and apparent differentiation after several passages; however, conditioned medium from proliferating cultures can overcome this block, enabling continuous propagation of undifferentiated rat NS cells. We found that dormancy is induced by autocrine production of bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs). Accordingly, the BMP antagonist noggin can replace condition

SUBMITTER: Sun Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3096055 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature