Fully understanding the phenotype of neurons in vivo involves examining their morphology, immunocytochemically analyzing their protein expression, examining their afferent and efferent integration into neuronal microcircuitry, and functionally examining their activity. This task is significantly more difficult when you are attempting to determine whether multipotent precursor cells, often refer...

Several protocols have been developed for human induced pluripotent stem cell neuronal differentiation. We compare several methods for forebrain cortical neuronal differentiation by assessing cell morphology, immunostaining and gene expression. We evaluate embryoid aggregate vs. monolayer with dual SMAD inhibition differentiation protocols, manual vs. AggreWell aggregate formation, plating subs...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the modulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) upon the neuronal differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) through targeting RE-1 Silencing Factor (REST), a mature neuronal gene suppressor in neuronal and un-neuronal cells. METHODS Rat bone marrow derived-MSCs were induced into neuron-like cells (MSC-NCs) by DMSO and BHA in vitro. The expression of neuron specific enolas...

Electrospinning In article 2202785 by Liang Chen, Wenguo Cui, Yong Gu, and co-workers, a living-oriented fiber scaffold is found to fully exploit the advantage of stem cells, which can respond not only regulate local inflammatory microenvironment at early stages spinal cord injury, but also further differentiation fate continuously release brain-derived neurotrophic factor, promote neuronal reg...

In the developing mammalian brain, differentiating neurons mature morphologically via neuronal polarity programs. Despite discovery of polarity pathways acting concurrently with differentiation, it's unclear how neurons traverse complex polarity transitions or how neuronal progenitors delay polarization during development. We report that zinc finger and homeobox transcription factor-1 (Zeb1), a...

Studies on the molecular mechanisms underlying neuronal differentiation are frequently performed using cell lines established from neuroblastomas. In this study we have used mouse N1E-115 neuroblastoma cells that undergo neuronal differentiation in response to DMSO. During differentiation, cyclin-dependent kinase (cdk) activities decline and phosphorylation of the retinoblastoma gene product (p...

Objective: Malformations of cortical development (MCD) are rare central nervous system abnormalities that caused by disruption normal stages, including neural cell proliferation, type differentiation, neuronal migration, and final positioning. It has different phenotypic presentations which largely depend on the underlying cause disorder is associated with other neurologic systemic disorders. M...

Neural precursor cells (NPCs) differentiate into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes in response to intrinsic and extrinsic changes. Notch signals maintain undifferentiated NPCs, but the mechanisms underlying the neuronal differentiation are largely unknown. We show that SIRT1, an NAD(+)-dependent histone deacetylase, modulates neuronal differentiation. SIRT1 was found in the cytoplasm of...

It has become apparent that chromatin modification plays a critical role in the regulation of cell-type-specific gene expression. Here, we show that an inhibitor of histone deacetylase, valproic acid (VPA), induced neuronal differentiation of adult hippocampal neural progenitors. In addition, VPA inhibited astrocyte and oligodendrocyte differentiation, even in conditions that favored lineage-sp...