The Biological Characteristics Of Human Umbilical Cord-derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells And Their Differentiation Into Nerve-like Cells

Objective: To study the biological characteristics of human umbilical cord-derived (?)esenchymal stem cells (MSCs), and explore the feasibility of inducing them to differentiate into nerve-like cells with Salvia miltiorrhiza. This study may expand the potential role of MSCs in neurotransplantation and construction of tissue bank , and also provide an important insight into the understanding of the traditional Chinese medicine Salvia miltiorrhiza as a neural inductor.Materials and Methods: MSCs were cultured from the Wharton's Jelly taken from human umbilical cord of full-term section births. Salvia miltiorrhiza and β -mercaptoethanol were used to induce the human umbilical cord-derived MSCs to differentiate. The expression of neural protein markers were shown by immunocytochemistry. The induction process was monitored by phise contrast microscopy, electron microscopy(EM)..The changes of ultramicrostructure were compared with Transmission electron microscope (TEM). The DNA, RNA metabolism were investigated by Laser scanning confocal microscopy(LSCM) .The pleiotrophin and nestin genes were measured by RT-PCR.