Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Under the regulation and induction by some in vitro signals, neural stem cells can be induced to a cell population with similar types and composition to the cells in the receptor region, which facilitates cells to easily incorporate into target tissue, meets the cell quantity required by cell transplantation and increases the survival rate of transplanted cells.
OBJECTIVE: To validate the differentiation of mesencephalic neural stem cells induced by interleukin 1β under hypoxic conditions.
METHODS: Following harvesting mesencephalic tissue from 12 day pregnant fetal mice, neural stem cells were cultured and identified. Then these mesencephalic neural stem cells were inoculated into DMEM/F12 culture medium containing 10% fetal bovine serum and DMEM/F12 culture medium containing 10% fetal bovine serum + interleukin 1β under normoxic (21%O₂) and hypoxic (3% O₂) environment. After 9-11 days of induced differentiation, immunohistochemical staining and flow cytometry were performed to detect tyrosine hydroxylase- and neuronspecific enolase-positive expression. Neural stem cells of mesencephalic tissue of 12-day pregnant mice can be in vitro cultured and induce-differentiated into dopaminergic neurons. Under hypoxic environment or hypoxic environment + interleukin 1β induction, mesencephalic neural stem cells showed a high differentiation rate and more matured phenotype compared to the normoxic conditions. These findings suggest that hypoxia or hypoxia + interleukin 1β can significantly promote mesencephalic neural stem cells to differentiate into dopaminergic neurons with more matured morphology and functions.

Key words: stem cells, stem cell culture and differentiation, hypoxia, interleukin-1β, mesencephalic neural stem cell, tyrosine hydroxylase, dopaminergic neuron, provincial grants-supported paper, stem cell photographs-containing paper