The effects of different phenotype astrocytes on neural stem cells differentiation in co-culture

Astrocytes were reported to show neuroprotective effects on neurons, but there was no direct evidence for a functional relationship between astrocytes and neural stem cells (NSCs). In this experiments, we examined neuronal differentiation of NSCs induced by protoplasmic and fibrous astrocytes in a co-culture model respectively. Two types of astrocytes and NSCs were isolated from E13 to 15 cortex of rats. The neuronal differentiation of NSCs was examined after co-culture with two kinds of astrocytes. There were more neuronal marker β-tublin III positive cells from NSCs co-cultured with protoplasmic astrocytes. However the differentiated neurons, whether co-cultured with protoplasmic astrocytes or fibrous astrocytes, both expressed glutamate AMPA receptor subunit GluR2 protein and exhibited biological electrical reactivity after stimulated by glutamine. Therefore, these findings indicated that two types of astrocytes could induce the differentiation of NSCs and also possibly induce functional maturation of differentiated neurons, among which protoplasmic astrocytes have the ability to promote neuronal differentiation of NSCs compared with fibrous astrocytes.

► We established two types of co-culture media for differentiation of NSCs. ► Protoplasmic astrocytes can promote the neuronal differentiation of NSCs. ► The differentiated neurons have biological activities.