Neuronal and astrocytic cells, obtained after differentiation of human neural GFAP-positive progenitors, present heterogeneous expression of PrPc

PrPc is a cellular isoform of the prion protein with an unknown normal function. One of the putative physiological roles of this protein is its involvement in cell differentiation. Recently, in vitro and in vivo studies showed that GFAP-positive cells have characteristics of stem/progenitor cells that generate neurons and glia. We used an in vitro model of human neurogenesis from GFAP-positive progenitor cells to study the expression of PrPc during neural differentiation. Semi-quantitative multiplex-PCR assay and Western blot analysis revealed a significant increase of PRNP expression level in differentiated cells compared to undifferentiated cell population. As determined by immunocytochemistry followed by a quantitative image analysis, the PrPc level increased significantly in neuronal cells and did not increase significantly in glial cells. Of note, glial and neuronal cells showed a very large heterogeneity of PrPc expression. Our results provide the basis for studying the role of PrPc in cell differentiation and neurogenesis from human GFAP-positive progenitor cells.