Chinese Herbs for Inducing Rat Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells Differentiated into Neuron-Like Cells

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to observe the influence of two Chinese herbs of ligustrazine and Xuefuzhuyu injection on neuron-like cells differentiation from rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) respectively. Most primarily cultured BMSCs adhered to the wall at 3 days after cultured, which proliferated faster after passaged, and the 5th passage of cells were mostly purified into BMSCs. In the present study, the 5th passage of BMSCs were (97.51±1.22) % CD44 positive, but negative for CD45, which were identified by immunocytochemical technique. Serum-free low-sugar Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (L-DMEM) contains 1.25 g/L ligustrazine and 3.0 g/L Xuefuzhuyu injection were used to induce the 5th passage of BMSCs respectively in vitro. Neuron-like cells with prominence and bifurcation could be detected after induction under an inverted phase contrast microscope. The immunocytochemical method showed that nestin and neuron-specific enolase (NSE) were positive in neuron-like cells, but without glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) expression. Both ligustrazine and Xuefuzhuyu injection have the potential for inducing neuron-like cells differentiation from rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells respectively. Compared with Xuefuzhuyu injection-induced cells, neuron-like cells induced with ligustrazine might be better in the level of morphological changes, as well as nestin and NSE expression.