Electromagnetic stimulation on proliferation and differentiation of spinal cord neural stem cells

FENG Feng; MU Xiang; YUAN Hua; WANG Bingshui; LIU Wei

Abstract：Objective The study aims to investigate the effects of electromagnetic stimulation on proliferation and differentiation of rat spinal cord neural stem cells (NSCs) and the possible mechanisms.Methods NSCs were isolated from the spinal cord of embryonic 14 d (E14 d) Wistar rats,and cultured in serum-free medium for two weeks.Then they were divided into the experiment and control groups.NSCs of experimental group were exposed in 0.1 Hz,4T high-intensity pulsed electromagnetic field for 8 times,each 20 ms pulse discharge,and NSCs of control group were given sham stimulation.On the firt day after intervention,10％ fetal bovine serum was used to induce adherence and differentiation;protein immunoblotting (Western Blot) was used to detect β-catenin protein expression one week after adherence,and NCSs could differentiate into MAP2 positive neurons by immunofluorescence staining two weeks later.Neuronal spontaneous discharge case was recorded by inflated visual patch clamp after two weeks.Results After the intervention,immunofluorescence staining revealed that the MAP2 positive cells of electromagnetic stimulation group was 45.4％ ± 3.1％,which was significantly increased compared with 38.3％ ± 6.0％ of the control group (P ＜ 0.05).Western Blot showed that 7 days after the intervention the β-catenin protein level in electromagnetic stimulation group was higher than that of the control group.Spontaneous neuronal discharge which was recorded by patch clamp at 14th day after induction showed its physiological function.Conclusion High-intensity pulsed electromagnetic stimulation can promote the rat spinal cord neural stem cells to proliferate and differentiate into functional neurons.