Down regulation of pRb in cultures of avian neuroretina cells promotes proliferation of reactive Müller-like cells and emergence of retinal stem/progenitors

The aim of this work was to define the role of pRb depletion in the proliferation and differentiation of avian retinoblasts in vitro. For this purpose vectors expressing pRb short hairpin RNA were used to deplete pRb in cultures of avian neuroretinal cells. Down regulation of pRb was observed by Western blot and quantification of nuclear pRb. Cell proliferation and differentiation were studied following BrdU labeling and immunostaining. Transfection significantly down-regulated pRb in neuroretinal cells. Long-term effect of pRb depletion mainly induced proliferation of epithelial-like cells that expressed markers of reactive Müller glial cells. A minority of these cells that survived passaging could be maintained as neurosphere-like aggregates with low pRb, not observed in control cultures. BrdU labeling followed by a two week chase showed the presence of cells still remained labelled, indicating low cell cycling. Under appropriate conditions, these aggregates differentiate in precursors of amacrine interneurons shown by the expression of AP2, in absence of the photoreceptors marker visinin and the late neuronal marker MAP2. Taken together these data show that decrease pRb level in cultures of avian neuroretinal cells promotes the emergence and proliferation of stem cell/progenitors from reactive-like Muller cells.