Wnt/β-catenin Signals Regulate The Balance Between SVZa NSCs Proliferation And Differentiation

A population of neural stem cells (NSCs) residing in the anterior portion of the forebrain subventricular zone (SVZa) can differentiate into neurons, and migrate through the rostral migratory stream (RMS) to the olfactory bulb (OB). It also has been confirmed that the volume of P0 SVZa is the biggest. To explore the molecular mechanism involving in NSCs proliferation and differentiation, we chose P0 SVZa NSCs cultured in vitro as the experimental model.Wnt/β-catenin signaling plays important roles in the neural development.β-catenin is an important compoment of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. During neural development, Wnts and their receptors are expressed in complex spatiotemporal patterns in the nervous system. Overexpression of Wnt1 or ectopic expression of activatedβ-catenin results in an enlarged mass of neural tissue. In the presence of Wnt signals,β-catenin is stabilized and translocated to the nucleus, where it interacts with transcription factors of the LEF/TCF family to induce changes in gene expression. Glycogen synthase kinase-3β(GSK-3β) is another important component of Wnt/β-catenin signaling. GSK-3βplays important roles in the regulation ofβ-catenin by phosphorylating. Fully phosphorylatedβ-catenin is subsequently ubiquitinated and degraded by proteosomes.β-catenin represents a central and non-redundant signaling component in the canonical Wnt signaling pathway, and its activation or ablation allows therefore a general assessment of canonical Wnt signals.β-catenin signals impinge on the decision of neuronal progenitors to proliferate or differentiate. But the roles of Wnt/β-catenin signals in the proliferation and differentiation of NSCs have not been elucidated fully yet.It has been confirmed that many signal molecules play important roles in the proliferation and differentiation of NSCs, including BMPs family, bHLH family, FGFs and...