Abstract

Neural stem cells (NSCs) have considerable capacity for self-renewing and also ability for generating neurons in the mammalian brain. However, one of the big challenges is the migration and targeted homing of transplanted NSCs into the injured site to treat neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer´s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), multiple sclerosis (MS), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brain ischemia (BI) and spinal cord injury (SCI). To improve homing capacity, pretreatment of NSCs with Valproic acid (VPA), which is supposed to cause diverse effects on migration ability of NSCs, is a strategy. More recently, hind brain and olfactory bulbs have been introduced as a good source of NSCs. So, NSCs were isolated from these two sources of postnatal day 1 (PND1) rats. These isolated cells were characterized by expressing neuronal markers such as Nestin and Sox2. The expression of four selected chemokine receptors (CXCR4, CXCR6, CCR1 and CCR7), which are important effectors in homing of stem cells, was investigated. It is concluded that VPA treatment enhances NSCs migration and homing showing its potential to be applied for cell-based therapies.

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