Corticosteroids can influence brain function, and glucocorticoid hormone receptors (GRs) are present in brain tissue. We observed that GR and also mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) are expressed by embryonic rat neural stem cells (NSCs). NSCs in developing ventricular epithelium were positive for GR. Stimulation of cultured NSCs with the specific receptor ligands dexamethasone and corticosterone ...

Identifying the mechanisms controlling quiescence and activation of neural stem cells (NSCs) is crucial for understanding brain repair. Here, we demonstrate that Hedgehog (Hh) signaling actively regulates different pools of quiescent and proliferative NSCs in the adult ventricular-subventricular zone (V-SVZ), one of the main brain neurogenic niches. Specific deletion of the Hh receptor Patched ...

Nestin-cre transgenic mice have been widely used to direct recombination to neural stem cells (NSCs) and intermediate neural progenitor cells (NPCs). Here we report that a readily utilized, and the only commercially available, Nestin-cre line is insufficient for directing recombination in early embryonic NSCs and NPCs. Analysis of recombination efficiency in multiple cre-dependent reporters and...

Niche astrocytes have been reported to promote neuronal differentiation through juxtacrine signaling. However, the effects of astrocytes on neuronal differentiation following ischemic stroke are not fully understood. In the present study, transplanted astrocytes and neural stem cells (NSCs) were transplanted into the ischemic striatum of transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) model r...

This study aimed to investigate changes of characteristics of neural stem cells (NSCs) in a neonatal rat with hypoxic-ischemic brain damage (HIBD) and provide effective method and time window for the treatment of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). A total of 231 7-day-old neonatal SD rats were randomly divided into control, hypoxic and HIBD groups (n=77 per group). Each group was randomly d...

The rational of neural stem cells (NSCs) in the therapy of neurological disease is either to replace dead neurons or to improve host neuronal survival, the latter of which has got less attention and the underlying mechanism is as yet little known. Using a transwell co-culture system, we reported that, in organotypic brain slice cultures, NSCs significantly improved host neuronal viability. Inte...

BACKGROUND Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes a rapid loss of motor neurons, leading to weakness and paralysis. Transplantation of neural stem cells is known to restore the neuronal activity but is inefficient due to limited regenerative capability and low rate of survival. There has been an emphasis on the use of growth factors along with neural stem cells (NSCs) to enhance the neuronal recovery....

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), a subgroup of the TGF-β superfamily, play critical roles in neural progenitor cell fate determination. Neural stem cells (NSCs) are multipotent progenitor cells that can differentiate into neurons, oligodendrocytes and astrocytes under certain conditions. In our recent report, using an antibody that can recognize both BMP-2 and BMP-4 (BMP-2/4), we showed that...

Tyro3, Axl and Mertk (TAM) receptor tyrosine kinases play multiple functional roles by either providing intrinsic trophic support for cell growth or regulating the expression of target genes that are important in the homeostatic regulation of immune responses. TAM receptors have been shown to regulate adult hippocampal neurogenesis by negatively regulation of glial cell activation in central ne...

multiple sclerosis (ms) and its animal model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (eae), are chronic inflammatory demyelinating disorders of central nervous system (cns). while the cause is unclear, the fundamental mechanism is thought to be destruction of myelin sheaths of neurons through immune system. one of the approaches being proposed in eae therapy is neural stem cells (nscs) trans...