Open AccessPDGF, NT-3 and IGF-2 in Combination Induced Transdifferentiation of Muscle-Derived Stem Cells into Schwann Cell-Like Cells
Author(s) -
Yi Tang,
Hua He,
Ning Cheng,
Ye Song,
Weijin Ding,
Yingfan Zhang,
Wenhao Zhang,
Jie Zhang,
Heng Peng,
Hua Jiang
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0073402
Subject(s) - transdifferentiation , microbiology and biotechnology , stem cell , biology , schwann cell , neurotrophic factors , ciliary neurotrophic factor , neurotrophin , cellular differentiation , receptor , biochemistry , gene
Muscle-derived stem cells (MDSCs) are multipotent stem cells with a remarkable long-term self-renewal and regeneration capacity. Here, we show that postnatal MDSCs could be transdifferentiated into Schwann cell-like cells upon the combined treatment of three neurotrophic factors (PDGF, NT-3 and IGF-2). The transdifferentiation of MDSCs was initially induced by Schwann cell (SC) conditioned medium. MDSCs adopted a spindle-like morphology similar to SCs after the transdifferentiation. Immunocytochemistry and immunoblot showed clearly that the SC markers S100, GFAP and p75 were expressed highly only after the transdifferentiation. Flow cytometry assay showed that the portion of S100 expressed cells was more than 60 percent and over one fourth of the transdifferentiated cells expressed all the three SC markers, indicating an efficient transdifferentiation. We then tested neurotrophic factors in the conditioned medium and found it was PDGF, NT-3 and IGF-2 in combination that conducted the transdifferentiation. Our findings demonstrate that it is possible to use specific neurotrophic factors to transdifferentiate MDSCs into Schwann cell-like cells, which might be therapeutically useful for clinical applications.