Butylated hydroxyanisole promotes expression of neural specific genes in mouse fetal liver cells through extracellular signal-regulated kinase signaling pathways

AIM: To study the mechanism of butylated hydroxyanisole-induced neural differentiation of fetal liver Sca-1+ cells in vitro. METHODS: Sca-1+ cells from 14.5-day-old mouse fetal liver were isolated with a magnetic cell sorting kit. Cultured cells pretreated with or without extracellular signal-regulated kinase (MEK1) inhibitor, PD98059, were induced by 200 μmol/L butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) for 24 hours, and then incubated in serum-free medium. Expression of genes in treated or untreated cells were assayed by Western blotting and RT-PCR. RESULTS: There was low level of neuronfilament-L (NF-L) and brain factor-1 (BF-1) in fetal liver Sca-1+ cells, but no neuronfilament-H (NF-H) and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) was observed. BHA significantly promoted the expression of neuron-specific NF-L, NF-H, BF-1, and TH in fetal liver Sca-1+ cells. NF-L, NF-H, BF-1 and TH increased by 6.32 fold, 2.73 fold, 3.37 fold and 2.68 fold, respectively (all P<0.01 vs untreated cells). However, the expression of BHA-induced genes were inhibited by ERK kinase inhibitor PD98059 (25 μmol/L). CONCLUSION: BHA induces neural differentiation of fetal liver cells through ERK.