Enhanced neuronal differentiation of NTera-2 cells expressing neuronally restricted β2 adrenergic receptor

Abstract

NTera-2/D1 (NT2) is a human teratocarcinoma cell line which can be cultured as a dividing population of precursor cells that can be manipulated with retinoic acid (RA) to yield post-mitotic neurons. Precursor cells were transfected with the human β2 adrenergic receptor, controlled by the neuronal cell specific rat synapsin-1 promoter. Transfected precursor cells did not display elevated expression of the β2 adrenergic receptor. Upon differentiation to a neuronal phenotype with RA, βSyn2 and βSyn4 ( β2Syn-NT2; ATCC CRL-12356) displayed elevated β2 adrenergic receptor levels, and an elevated coupling to cAMP production. It was also observed that the elevated expression of the β2 adrenergic receptor in the neuronal NT2 cells resulted in an enhanced level of neuronal differentiation compared to the wild type cells. These results demonstrate that the neuronally restricted expression of the human β2 adrenergic receptor in NT2 neurons results in increased receptor levels and receptor stimulated generation of cAMP, this may result in the observed improvement in neuronal differentiation.