1. Academic Validation
  2. Cardiotrophin-1 stimulates the neural differentiation of human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells and survival of differentiated cells through PI3K/Akt-dependent signaling pathways

Cardiotrophin-1 stimulates the neural differentiation of human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells and survival of differentiated cells through PI3K/Akt-dependent signaling pathways

  • Cytotechnology. 2017 Dec;69(6):933-941. doi: 10.1007/s10616-017-0103-6.
Longying Peng 1 Xiaomei Shu 2 Changhui Lang 1 Xiaohua Yu 1
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Pediatric, First Affiliated Hospital, Zunyi Medical College, Zunyi, 563003, Guizhou Province, China.
  • 2 Department of Pediatric, First Affiliated Hospital, Zunyi Medical College, Zunyi, 563003, Guizhou Province, China. [email protected].
Abstract

Cardiotrophin-1 (CT1) plays an important role in the differentiation, development, and survival of neural stem cells. In this study, we analyzed its effects on the stimulation of human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells in terms of their potential to differentiate into neuron-like cells, their survival characteristics, and the molecular mechanisms involved. The treatment of cells with neural induction medium (NIM) and CT1 generated more cells that were neuron-like and produced stronger expression of neural-lineage markers than cells treated with NIM and without CT1. Bcl-2 and Akt phosphorylation (p-Akt) expression levels increased significantly in cells treated with both NIM and CT1. This treatment also effectively blocked cell death following neural induction and decreased Bax, Bak and cleaved-caspase 3 expression compared with cells treated with NIM without CT1. In addition, the inhibition of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) abrogated p-Akt and Bcl-2 expression. Thus, PI3K/Akt contribute to CT1-stimulated neural differentiation and to the survival of differentiated cells.

Keywords

Apoptosis; Cardiotrophin 1; Human umbilical cord blood mesenchymal stem cells; Neural differentiation; PI3K/Akt.

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