Neonatal cortical astrocytes possess intrinsic potential in neuronal conversion in defined media

• 作者: Peng Zeng Qiu-hong Hua Jun-yuan Gong Chang-jie Shi Xiao-ping Pi Xin Xie Ru Zhang
• 来源期刊: 中国药理学报（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2021,（11）
• 所属期刊栏目: Article Neuropharmacology
• 页码范围: 1757-1768
• 页数: 12页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Astrocytes are multifunctional brain cells responsible for maintaining the health and function of the central nervous system.Accumulating evidence suggests that astrocytes might be complementary source across different brain regions to supply new neurons during adult neurogenesis.In this study,we found that neonatal mouse cortical astrocytes can be directly converted into neurons when exposed to neurogenic differentiation culture conditions,with insulin being the most critical component.Detailed comparison studies between mouse cortical astrocytes and neuronal progenitor cells (NPCs) demonstrated the converted neuronal cells originate indeed from the astrocytes rather than NPCs.The neurons derived from mouse cortical astrocytes display typical neuronal morphologies,express neuronal markers and possess typical neuronal electrophysiological properties.More importantly,these neurons can survive and mature in the mouse brain in vivo.Finally,by comparing astrocytes from different brain regions,we found that only cortical astrocytes but not astrocytes from other brain regions such as hippocampus and cerebellum can be converted into neurons under the current condition.Altogether,our findings suggest that neonatal astrocytes from certain brain regions possess intrinsic potential to differentiate/transdifferentiate into neurons which may have clinical relevance in the future.