Phosphatidylcholine: role during embryonic neural stem cells differentiation.

MONTANER ANELEY; GIRARDINI J.E.; BANCHIO CLAUDIA

Congreso; Molecular mechanisms in cell signaling and gene expresión. Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular; 2013

Stem cells represent a unique cell type characterize by the ability to form, maintain and regenerate tissues they reside in. At later developmental stages, multipotent stem cells can be obtained from different embryonic tissues, such as neural stem cells (NSCs) isolated from the developing central nervous system. The identification of the mechanisms that promote neuronal differentiation of NSCs is vital for future stem cell repair strategies. We hypothesize that the differentiation process in embryonic NSCs could be modulated by lipidic metabolites acting as external or internal signals. To test this hypothesis, we established the conditions for culture embryonic NSCs from C57/BL mouse. The rate of differentiation was evaluated by inmunostaining coupled to fluorescence microscopy. After phosphatidylcholine (PtdCho) treatment for 7 days we observed a significant increase in the number of cells that express β-III tubulin suggesting that PtdCho promotes neuronal differentiation. In order to characterize the molecular mechanisms we analyzed the involvement of the ERK pathway on PtdCho-induced neuronal differentiation. We observed that the effect is abolished by the inhibitor UO126. Taken together these results suggest that PtdCho or any derivative metabolite could promote neuronal differentiation from NSCs by a mechanism that involved ERK pathway.