A Pilot Study On The Culture And Differentiation Of Bone Marrow Stromal Cells From Adult Rats

[Objective] Neural stem cell transplantation has raised hopes that researchers can find ways to repair nervous system damage. However, neural stem cells from embryo or adult central nervous system have many disadvantages to transplantation, including the limited donor tissue source, immunology rejection, ethical disputes etc. But bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) can be the ideal source for transplantation due to their strong abilities to renew and differentiate and their abundance source without either ethical worries or potential immunology rejection. The objective of this pilot test is to study the proliferation and differentiation of the cultured bone marrow stromal cells from adult rats and provide more theory support for neural stem cells transplantation. [Methods] Bone marrow cells were collected from the femur and tibia of adult rats. Then, BMSCs were harvested by means of density gradient centrifugation. BMSCs from adult rats were cultured with EGF, bFGF and neurabasal medium. Immunocytochemistry was performed to identify the differentiated cells.[Results] BMSCs could proliferate and generate clones when they were cultured in vitro. These clones reoccurred after they were dispersed into single cell through mechanical method. These clones grew rapidly and differentiated into neuron-like cells and astrocyte-like cells.[Conclusion] BMSC can differentiate into neuron and astrocyte if the culture condition is appropriate. Experimental conditions in this test are suitable for the culture of BMSC.