Role of immune signals on the survival, differentiation and proliferation of transplanted aNSC.

MATHIEU, PATRÍCIA, PIANTANIDA, ANA PAULA AND PITOSSI, FERNANDO.

Cordoba, Argentina

Congreso; First Joint Meeting of the Argentine Society for Neurosciences (SAN) and the Argentine Workshop in Neurosciences (TAN); 2009

Adult neural stem cells (aNSC) from the subventricular layer in the lateral ventricles (SVZ) have the potencial to differentiate into neural cells. Their plasticity and lack of ethical problems have made aNSC an attractive source of cells for cell-based therapies for neurodegenerative disease. Inflammatory response is known to affect transplanted cell survival, differentiation and proliferation. As a first approximation to study the role of immune signals on transplanted aNSC, we have characterized the inflammatory response to an aNSC transplant in the striatum. Before transplantation, the percentage of aNSC, astrocytes or neurons in the aNSC culture was determined by immunocytochemistry using specific markers (Nestin, GFAP and Tuj, respectively). Survival and inflammatory response after striatum transplantation of undifferentiated aNSC were determined 1, 3 and 6 weeks after grafting. At that time points animals were perfused intracardially, brains were dissected out and Nissl staining and GFAP or GSA immunohistochemistry were performed to analyze the inflammatory response to the transplant and cell survival. Although a large portion of grafted cells underwent cell death, 31% of them were identified after 6 weeks and the inflammation was only evident in the grafted area. The percentage of GFAP-positive grafted cells increased at 6 weeks post-transplantation, while Nestin-positive cells decline over time. These results indicate that without any stimulus grafted cells in the striatum diverted to glial differentiation. These data show that aNSC could become an important source of cells for cell-based therapies because of the survival percentage and the low inflammatory response against the transplant.