Neural markers espression in rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell cultures treated with neurosteroids

The aim of the present investigation is to studythe effects of DEX or E2 treatment during differentiation towards neural cell line of rat BM-MSCs in culture. Inorder to better characterize biochemically our in vitromodel, we evaluate by western blotting and immunocytochemical analysis some neural lineage markers (nestin, neurofilament, beta-tubulin) and MAP-Kinases. An enhancedexpression of the neural markers and MAP-Kinase in DEX-treated BM-MSCs cultures is found. In addition, E2-treatment increases MAP-Kinase and beta-tubulin expression, but it decreases nestin and neurofilament expression. In conclusion,our findings highlight a significant up and downmodulation of nestin, neurofilament, beta-tubulin and MAP-Kinases expression in neurosteroids-treated BM-MSCs. In particular, our results clarify the molecular mechanism involved during eventual differentiation of these stem cells treated with DEX and E2, addressed towards a neural cell line, that may express neurotrophic receptors and releaseneurotrophines particularly implicated during neurogenesisprocesses.