The correlation between differentiation and apoptosis in the process of differentiation from adult rat mesenchymal stem cells into neuron-like cells

AIM:To supply the theoretic evidences of elongating the lifetime of neuron-like cells differentiated from adult rat mesenchymal stem cells, we investigated the relationship between the differentiation and apoptosis in the process of induction. METHODS: The mesenchymal stem cells(MSCs) were isolated primarily from rat bone marrow, and purified by passage culture. The 5th passage of MSCs was induced by β-mercaptoethanol and all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA). After 1 h, 3 h and 5 h of induction, the cells were stained immunocytochemically with anti-MAP-2 and anti-GFAP antibodies, respectively. In addition to counting the ratio of neuron-like cells in MSCs, DAPI staining was employed to identify whether the differentiated cells have an apoptotic morphological changes. The ratio of apoptotic cells at 1 h, 3 h and 5 h after induction were detected by flow cytometry (FCM). CONCLUSIONS:1. β-mercaptoethanol and ATRA had the different ability that induced MSCs to differentiate to neuron-like cells. 2. Apoptosis was also initiated in the process of differentiation, and there is positive correlation between the ratio of differentiation and apoptosis.