The Effects Of H-IL-6 On The Proliferation And Differentiation Of Hippocampal Neural Stem Cells Of New-born Rats And The Research Of Its Mechanism

Our researches are focused on the effect of gp130 stimulation on the proliferation and differentiation of rat neural stem cells. We specially choose the designed fusion proteins H-IL-6 as a candidate molecule for regulating the maintenance of neural stem cells, since it is the most potent activator of gp!30. Firstly, we choose hippocampus of new born rats as the resource of neural stem cells and succeed in isolating and culturing these cells as so-called neurospheres. These neuroshperes are immunoreactive to nestin and are induced to differentiate by withdrawal of supplementing additional cytokines driving cells into neurons and astrocytes. Secondly, these primary spheres are dissociated and cultured in different cytokine-containing medium, to obtain the next generation of spheres. We find that H-IL6 can markedly promote proliferation of neural stem cells and generation of secondary spheres. Thirdly, neurospheres are cultured on poly-L-lysine coated substrate in different cytokine-containing medium. The results indicate that H-IL6 can significantly suppress differentiation of neurospheres in a dose-dependent manner. Fourthly, we find that H-1L6 can significantly activate phosphorylation of STAT3 in rat neural stem cells by western blotting analysis.