ABSTRACT
Objective: cerebrospinal fluid [CSF] plays an important role in cortical development during the fetal stages. Embryonic CSF [E-CSF] consists of numerous neurotrophic and growth factors that regulate neurogenesis, differentiation, and proliferation. Mesenchymal stem cells [MSCs] are multi-potential stem cells that can differentiate into mesenchymal and non-mesenchymal cells, including neural cells. This study evaluates the prenatal and postnatal effects of CSF on proliferation and neural differentiation of bone marrow MSCs [BM-MSCs] at gestational ages E19, E20, and the first day after birth [P1]
Materials and Methods: in this experimental study, we confirmed the mesenchymal nature of BM-MSCs according to their adherence properties and surface markers [CD44, CD73 and CD45]. The multi-potential characteristics of BMMSCs were verified by assessments of the osteogenic and adipogenic potentials of these cells. Under appropriate in vitro conditions, the BM-MSCs cultures were incubated with and without additional pre- and postnatal CSF. The MTT assay was used to quantify cellular proliferation and viability. Immunocytochemistry was used to study the expression of MAP-2 and beta-III tubulin in the BM-MSCs. We used ImageJ software to measure the length of the neurites in the cultured cells
Results: BM-MSCs differentiated into neuronal cell types when exposed to basic fibroblast growth factor [b-FGF]. Viability and proliferation of the BM-MSCs conditioned with E19, E20, and P1 CSF increased compared to the control group. We observed significantly elevated neural differentiation of the BM-MSCS cultured in the CSF-supplemented medium from E19 compared to cultures conditioned with E20 and P1 CSF group
Conclusion: the results have confirmed that E19, E20, and P1 CSF could induce proliferation and differentiation of BM-MSCs though they are age dependent factors. The presented data support a significant, conductive role of CSF components in neuronal survival, proliferation, and differentiation