Articles

  • the Korean Society for Brain and Neural Sciences

Article

Original Article

Exp Neurobiol 2009; 18(1): 37-47

Published online June 30, 2009

© The Korean Society for Brain and Neural Sciences

Differentiation of Rat Neural Stem Cells Following Transplantation in the Brain of Huntington's Disease Rat Model

Hwa Lee Ryu1, So Yeon Lee1, Keunwoo Park2, Changhoon Kim2, Byung Kwan Jin2 and Churl K. Min1*

1Department of Biological Sciences, 2Brain Diseases Research Center, School of Medicine, Ajou University, Suwon 443-749, Korea

Correspondence to: *To whom correspondence should be addressed.
TEL: 031-219-2621, FAX: 031-219-1615
e-mail: minc@ajou.ac.kr

Abstract

Stem cells provide an important means for regenerative medicine due to the capacity to generate multiple types of differentiated cells and at the same time to maintain self-renewal. To identify the therapeutic effect of the transplantation of neural stem cells, differentiation and migration capacity of the neural stem cells that were isolated from E14 rat embryo and maintained in culture were examined after transplantation to the striatum of the quinolinic acid (QA)-induced Huntington's disease rat model. in vitro co-culture of the neural stem cells with the mixture of primary neurons and astrocytes promoted the maturation and the synapse formation of neuronal progenies of neural stem cells. Following the implantation, the neural stem cells survived, differentiated, and migrated in the damaged striatum region, exhibiting immunoreactivities against nestin, Tuj-1, GFAP, GAD67 and synapsin 1 to a varying degree. These data provide clear evidence supporting that the neural stem cells isolated from the rat embryo and maintained in the primary culture have a multiple capacity to differentiate into neurons or glial cells both in vitro and in vivo.

Keywords: neural stem/progenitor cells, Huntington's disease, striatal graft, quinolinic acid