MicroRNA-506-3p regulates neural stem cell proliferation and differentiation through targeting TCF3

•MiR-506-3p is increased during NSC differentiation.•MiR-506-3p modulates cell proliferation and differentiation of NSCs•MiR-506-3p targets TCF3 and decreases its expression in NSC cells.•TCF3 is involved in miR-506-3p regulated proliferation and differentiation in NSC cells.

Neural stem cells (NSCs) are self-renewing, multipotent and undifferentiated precursors that retain the capacity for differentiation into both glial and neuronal lineages. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that play important roles in cell development, differentiation and apoptosis. Recent studies have shown that TCF3 affects neural stem cell proliferation and differentiation. In this study, we predicted that microRNA-506-3p would target TCF3 and demonstrated that miR-506-3p negatively regulates TCF3 expression. The expression level of miR-506-3p was significantly increased during NSC differentiation. In addition, we found that miR-506-3p overexpression increased NSC differentiation and reduced NSC proliferation, indicating an important role of miR-506-3p in NSC. Moreover, the downstream of TCF3, Wnt signaling was significantly decreased with miR-506-3p transfection. These findings suggest that miR-506-3p played an important role in regulating NSC proliferation and differentiation via targeting TCF3, and provide a promising avenue for future in-depth research into the functions of miR-506-3p and TCF3 in nervous system development.